Roberto Fernando Jorge François Álvarez (born 23 November 1951), better known as Bobby François,[1] is a former Uruguayan rugby player and agricultural producer, known for being one of the sixteen survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash in the Andes Mountains in 1972.
[2][3] Like many other survivors, Bobby had studied at the Stella Maris school in the Carrasco neighborhood and was a member of the Old Christians rugby team.
[5] His companions say that he seemed to not have a survival instinct, from the moment of the accident, when he sat down in the snow, lit a cigarette and said: "We've had it!".
[7] Nevertheless, the group never left him alone and took care of him, to the point that Daniel Fernández massaged his feet so that they would not get infected.
[8] In Bobby's words: "I never saw a clear way out, what I could see was a series of shades ranging from opaque gray to deep black.