Carlos Páez Rodríguez

Carlos "Carlitos" Miguel Páez Rodríguez (born October 31, 1953) is one of the 16 survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes mountains on 13 October 1972.

He is the son of Uruguayan artist Carlos Páez Vilaró and was a rugby player for the Old Christians Club.

In 1992 he started a career in advertising as a member of Nivel-Publicis creative team.

He founded his own agency, Rating Publicidad, and was director of Bates Uruguay Publicidad.

In the present day, apart from his activities as a lecturer, he manages his own communication consultancy and public relations firm.

He has two children, Maria Elena de los Andes "Gochi" and Carlos Diego; and three granddaughters, Mía, Justina and Violeta.

He was portrayed by Bruce Ramsay and John Malkovich (as the older Carlos, the narrator at the start of the movie, uncredited) in the 1993 feature film Alive.

He portrayed his own father in 2023 feature film Society of the Snow.

Paez said he was utterly unprepared for the tragedy.

“I was an 18-year-old boy, the son of a famous painter who gave us everything.

I still had a nanny – she packed my suitcase for the trip.

I had never been cold.

I had never been hungry.

I had never done anything useful.

And I lived the most incredible survival story of all time.”

He graduated from Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay and became an agricultural technician for 10 years.

In 2003, Páez published the book After The Tenth Day which became a best seller and has gone through 14 printings.