Presumed to have crash landed somewhere along the route, a five day effort began by both Chilean and Argentine search teams, including fellow BSAA pilots, yet no trace of the aircraft or its passengers were found. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. By Plane and Pilot Updated December 12, 2019 Save Article. The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. It was underpowered, unstable in yaw on the ground (pilots of the Tudor got used to feeding in power at different levels from each engine on takeoff to prevent the beast from departing uncontrollably off the side of the runway), unpleasant to handle in the air, prone to leaks of all kinds, and an ergonomic and maintenance nightmare. _.. . Discussion On August 2, 1947, the crew of a British South American Airways (BSAA) Lancastrian, an airliner version of the Avro Lancaster WWII bomber, sent a cryptic message. Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . The theory about it meaning emergency crash landing is interesting but given a lack of sources outside of a few people telling anecdotes I don't know how believable it is. Star Dust, registration G-AGWH, an Avro 691 Lancastrian 3, departed Buenos Aires for Santiago at 13.46 on 2 August 1947. The names of the victims were known. The word If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. The fate of the aircraft and its occupants remained unknown for over fifty years, giving rise to various conspiracy theories about its disappearance. [8], Star Dust left Buenos Aires at 1:46 pm on 2 August. This gives us the very
Whilst this possibility lends true to the first half of the word, the rest does not match up with this theory, and considering it was sent through and received the exact same three times over, its hard to imagine this error occurring on both ends. As might be inferred from that lineage, it was uncomfortable, noisy, and cramped. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! the sign off for a Morse code message is AR. Some things can be said with some degree of certainty. between the letters). Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash?
The North Texas Skeptic reception of the signal was loud and clear but that it was given of Stendec. simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). / -.
Explaining the unexplained: 10 famous mysteries solved They were flying across the Andes from east to west the pilots thought they were much further west than they were and turned north straight into the mountains and collided with a peak. . three times.STENDEC/Stardust With that in mind, and the fact that the operator himself mentioned that Harmer sent the message extremely quickly, its likely that this was the message after all. One final mystery lay in the last message sent out by the Star Dust. method of signalling a late arrival amongst RAF radio operators.. / - / .- / .-.. / .- / - / . French air safety investigators concluded in a 2012 report that the tragedy likely had been caused by an odd cascade of errors. [10] The Chilean Air Force radio operator at Santiago airport described this transmission as coming in "loud and clear" but very fast; as he did not recognise the last word, he requested clarification and heard "STENDEC" repeated twice in succession before contact with the aircraft was lost. Mysteries "STENDEC" in Morse code is: / - / . A WGBH-Boston NOVA: Vanished (2001) program about the crash commented: Some of the six passengers on board seemed to have stepped straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. They included a Palestinian businessman with a sizable diamond sewn into the lining of his jacket; a German migr, Marta Limpert, returning to Chile with the ashes of her dead husband; and a British courier carrying diplomatic correspondence. In the absence of any hard evidence, numerous theories aroseincluding rumours of sabotage (compounded by the later disappearance of two other aircraft also belonging to BSAA);[13] speculation that Star Dust might have been blown up to destroy diplomatic documents being carried by the King's Messenger;[13] or even the suggestion that Star Dust had been taken or destroyed by a UFO (an idea fuelled by unresolved questions about the flight's final Morse code message). STENDEC" That wasthe last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable even has an entry for STENDEC. Dozens of books and articles have examined the evidence, turned it over, twisted it, rearranged the letters, and drawn a blank. Subscribe now for ad-free access!Register and sign in to a free LGF account before subscribing, and your ad-free access will be automatically enabled. Whilst it's certainly a bizarre coincidence, especially given the circumstances, the theory goes that Harmer was trying to inform the control tower that the plane was going down. Improperly loaded, it crashed on landing, killing 80 of the people on board -- at the time, the worst air disaster in world history. by John . The Chilean operator did mention how Harmers messages came through unusually fast, so there is every chance that some letters were incorrectly spaced and caused confusion to the control tower. Outside of the music world, Joel is a best-selling author, releasing The Realists Guide to a Successful Music Career, which features Kris Williams is a lesbian, and that means she wont be seeing her son anytime soon. With the word not existing in international morse code, or any spoken language at the time, interpreting STENDEC has led to many varying theories. Mistakenly believing they had already cleared the mountain tops, they started their descent when they were in fact still behind cloud-covered peaks. This was the case in 1947 when an airliner crashed in the Andes, killing everyone aboard. - - . code. Didn't the test Tudor flight crash because the aileron controls had been reversed (e.g trying to roll right rolled the aircraft left) or am I thinking of a different British test aircraft crash. Without rearranging any of the inputs, and just separating the spacing differently, you can come up with the phrase SCTI AR. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code
Already a member? For other uses, see, Discovery of wreckage and reconstruction of the crash, "Pilot finally cleared over mystery of 1947 mountain plane disaster", "Aircraft operated by British South American Airways", "DNA clues reveal 55-year-old secrets behind crash of the Star Dust", "Vanished: 1947 Official Accident Report", "I Am Alive: The Crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571", Ministry of Civil Aviation official report on the accident, 1948, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1947_BSAA_Avro_Lancastrian_Star_Dust_accident&oldid=1142432641, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 10:00. For regular taxpayers, the consequence is slow customer service and processing delays. A faulty oxygen system cant be ruled The Theory The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. / -.-. But there are no old, bold pilots. The mystery became an obsession of the innumerable "Bermuda Triangle" crackpots, who attribute almost all unexplained losses of ships and aircraft within a 500,000 square-mile area to paranormal activity. / - / . But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. /-.-.
NOVA Online | Vanished! | Theories (Feb. 8, 2001) - PBS More Mysterious Disappearances That Were Later Solved Adding to the mystery, two Avro 691 Lancastrian aircraft had crashed during the previous seventeen months. I personally believe that the word was a misinterpretation of the code, but theories span far and wide on what the now notorious phrase stood for. The Message That Said STENDEC "ETA Santiago 17:45 hrs. Read on these 10 strange mysteries that were solved later. It is now believed that the crew became confused as to their exact location while flying at high altitudes through the (then poorly understood) jet stream. 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". selection of the ideas. If they wanted to convey distress, they would have sent an SOS., Misinterpretation Theory This condition causes everything from mental confusion to loss of consciousness. Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. BSAA ran out of money and passengers' confidence in 1949, with the result that it was forcibly incorporated into the state-owned British Overseas Airways Corporation, a component of today's British Airways. I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. The Avro Lancastrian began its life as a British Lancaster bomber in World War II. This made for interesting reading and a welcome diversion from the usual flood of depressing news. The STENDEC mystery, referring to the cryptic message sent by a Lancastrian airliner before it vanished in the Andes, is a staple of the UFO culture.
STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) There's still no explanation for the loss of Star Ariel, but so many things went wrong with Tudors on such a regular basis that its disappearance is hardly to be wondered at. . I was a radio operator aboard an R.A.N.
10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved | HowStuffWorks ntskeptics.org The "STENDEC mystery," referring to the cryptic message sent by a Lancastrian airliner before it vanished in the Andes, is a staple of the UFO culture. radio operator and/or receiver in Santiago, and playfulness on behalf out very fast. Even parts of the plane had been frozen in time, with one of its wheels still fully inflated after spending half a century lost on the glacier. All these variations seem implausible to a greater or lesser extent. In January 2000, a 100-man search party from the Argentine Army clambered 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) up Tupungato Mountain, a 6,552-meter (21,490-foot) volcano, where it located parts of the plane, as well as human bones, at the base of a glacier. STENDEC - Solved?! [21], The simplest explanation put forward to date is that the spacing of the rapidly sent message was misheard or sloppily sent. Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent. They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. / -. A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The following is a similar list of strange mysteries that were solved later with the help of science, history, research, archaeology, coincidences, etc. - / . [1][2], The last Morse code message sent by Star Dust was "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC". (STENDEC) It is understood that Iris Evans's sister was found and gave a blood sample after a BBC Horizon programme about the crash. The radio operator, Dennis Harmer, also had a record of wartime as well as civilian service. It makes me want to write out the Morse code and play with the spacing. From this time Their discovery revived. transmitted by the plane, reporting their position and intended The flight was conducted in zero-visibility conditions, so its unlikely the crew had any idea their plane was about to impact a mountainside. State Sen. Nathan Dahm (R-OK) has penned several bills loosening gun restrictions, including the nation's first anti-red flag MUNICH (AP) The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday, insisting that justice must be served to the perpetrators. The investigators concluded that the aircraft had not stalled. But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! 'Star Dust' did, however, broadcast a last, cryptic, Morse message; "STENDEC", which was received by Santiago Airport at 17:41 hrs - just four minutes before it's planned landing time. Explanations based in Morse code On board the British South American Airways flight were five crew members and six passengers, including the Captain, Commander Reginald J. Cook, an experienced and former RAF pilot during World War II. message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. Several people have pointed out that [23], "Stendec" redirects here. the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never
One of those two people was Nando Parrado and in his book "Miracle in the Andes" he describes that their flight also left in poor, inadvisable conditions. sent one final message in Morse code which was picked up by the As mentioned in a previous theory, morse code can be easily misinterpreted if incorrectly spaced or misheard by the receiver. This would have explained the suddenness of its disappearance, and the fact that large pieces of wreckage had not been spotted during a wide air and land search. of messages offering explanations of STENDEC. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like).
The last word in Star Dust's final Morse code transmission to Santiago airport, "STENDEC", was received by the airport control tower four minutes before its planned landing and repeated twice; it has never been satisfactorily explained. / -. Five months after the episode described by OP, one of BSAA's Avro Tudor IV aircraft, Star Tiger, with 31 persons on board, vanished on a flight from Lisbon to Bermuda with an intermediate fuel stop in the Azores. According to experts, if an additional space had been added between the first two letters, STENDEC would translate to: ATTENTION END END OF MESSAGE. It seems a bit redundant to say END and then END OF MESSAGE, however. [13], A 2000 Argentine Air Force investigation cleared Cook of any blame, concluding that the crash had resulted from "a heavy snowstorm" and "very cloudy weather", as a result of which the crew "were unable to correct their positioning". Fiddling with Morse code seems to offer the best chance of getting The flight itself was the last leg of a journey which originated from London, with the trip across the Atlantic taking place in a York aircraft, transferring to the Stardust for the crossing of the Andes Mountains. The Morse for AR is.- /.-. The Army unit also discovered that the wheels on the plane were in an upward position, so the crew had not attempted an emergency landing. So mysterious was Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the
NOVA Online | Vanished! | STENDEC Theories - PBS That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. . [14] Human remains were also recovered, including three torsos, a foot in an ankle boot and a manicured hand. Lancasters had four Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the front-line combat engine that powered the latest Spitfire and Mustang fighters.
The Mystery of STENDEC - YouTube For one, call signs for all BSAA flights in the 1940s began with star. Its unlikely that this would have been a point of confusion for Harmer, especially given that STENDEC wasnt a word. Solve the Mystery of STENDEC Readers' Theories Set #3 Posted February 8, 2001 previous set The word STENDEC means: "Severe Turbulence Encountered, Now Descending, Emergency Crash-Landing.". Mrs Coalwood said: "He was my older cousin, who I idolised hopelessly. STENDEC." That was the last communication sent in Morse code on August 2, 1947, by an Avro 691 Lancastrian aircraft flying for British South American Airways from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile. In fact, this conspiracy ran for so long that even a Spanish magazine published in the 1970s, which was dedicated to UFOs and the paranormal, named itself after the now infamous morse code. word is meaningless in almost every language, and trying to use And even less likely that the same morse dyslexia would be repeated _. Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error. Iris Evans, who had previously served in the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") as a chief petty officer, was the flight attendant. / -.-. "Stardust tank empty no diesel expected crash" Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable even has an entry for STENDEC. Dozens of books and articles have examined the evidence, turned it over, twisted it, rearranged the letters, and drawn a blank. the ETA. The searchers discovered one propeller, its tips scarred and bent backward, indicating that the prop had been revolving when the Lancastrian plowed into the Tupungato glacier. use SOS, the internationally accepted distress signal? As it turns out, STENDEC is an anagram of the word "descent." One popular theory is that the crew, flying at 24,000 feet in an unpressurized aircraft, suffered from hypoxia. On July 3, a rancher at Roswell, New Mexico, claimed to have found a UFO crash site with four alien bodies. An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain.
Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. The misunderstanding of their actual location reminds me of Uruguayan Flight 571, the subject of the book and movie Alive! STENDECANAGRAMS Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. All further calls were All rights reserved. A
It is thought that the plane may have caused an avalanche upon impact, resulting in the snowy burial of the aircraft, concealing it from searchers whilst at the same time preserving it for its eventual discovery years later. Their discovery revived interest in solving the mystery of what had happened to Flight CS59 and its 11 passengers and crew. Morse '._._.' Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images. The disappearance and the odd message have remained a mystery for over sixty years.