Mountaineers in Chile have discovered the wreckage of a plane that crashed in the Andes 54 years ago, killing all 24 people on board, including eight members of a professional football team. The Douglas DC-3, carrying players and staff of the top-division Chilean club Green Cross, disappeared on April 3, 1961, after an away match in Osorno.
The group found the wreckage at an altitude of about 3,200 metres (10,500 feet), approximately 360 kilometres (215 miles) south of Santiago. Expedition member Leonardo Albornoz told Chile’s Channel 7 that the exact site is being kept secret to prevent looting. The mountaineers reported seeing a large part of the fuselage without needing to excavate, along with scattered debris and bones.
The disappearance of the flight was one of Chile’s great unsolved mysteries and shocked the sporting world at the time. The team and staff had been split across two flights for the return journey; one plane reached Santiago safely, while the other vanished. Rescuers conducted weeks of fruitless searches, and symbolic funerals for the missing players drew large crowds.
Albornoz described the discovery as a "breathtaking moment," adding that they could "feel the energy of the place and breathe the pain." The location of the wreckage did not match where official publications had indicated it should be. Green Cross played in Chile’s first division until it was dissolved in 1965.
