Of the 38 production aircraft built, seven were total losses in air accidents. losing the first two dots) yields ETA LATE - apparently a common Read on these 10 strange mysteries that were solved later. The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . In 2000 the Argentine Army detachment found the debris scattered over one square kilometer, a relatively small area, so the bomb theory was discarded. At 5:41 p.m., a Chilean Morse code radio operator for the Los Cerrillos Airport received a message. Mistakenly believing they had already cleared the mountain tops, they started their descent when they were in fact still behind cloud-covered peaks. [10], In 1998, two Argentine mountaineers climbing Mount Tupungatoabout 60mi (100km) west-southwest of Mendoza, and about 50mi (80km) east of Santiagofound the wreckage of a Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine, along with twisted pieces of metal and shreds of clothing, in the Tupungato Glacier at an elevation of 15,000ft (4,600m). Checklin never married and his immediate family is now dead, so she and her brothers must decide whether to bring the body back to Britain. I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. This gives us the very On this ill-fated day, a British South American Airways airliner called Star Dust carrying six passengers and five crew members crashed during its journey from Buenos Aires to Santiago. Almost a year after the loss of Star Tiger, her sister aircraft, Star Ariel, also vanished in good weather while on a flight from Bermuda to Jamaica. In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. [3][pageneeded], Star Dust carried six passengers and a crew of five on its final flight. They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. / -. 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. Explanations based in Morse code In 1947 the official report into Stardusts disappearance had this With the word not existing in international morse code, or any spoken language at the time, interpreting STENDEC has led to many varying theories. 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. Whilst many accepted that the fate of Stardust and its crew had been settled, the absence of a wreckage, along with the mysterious circumstances surrounding its final message, lead to widespread speculation, with theories spanning from sabotage to extraterrestrial in nature. 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. ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. [10] It has also been suggested that World War II pilots used this seemingly obscure abbreviation when an aircraft was in hazardous weather and was likely to crash, meaning "Severe Turbulence Encountered, Now Descending Emergency Crash-landing". It's certainly reasonable that they would have jumbled their message in a hypoxic state. People all over the world had reported hundreds of flying saucer sightings during the last two weeks of June 1947. Voice The Avro Lancastrian was a civilian version of the wartime Lancaster heavy bomber. Thanks SK. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. / -. . It is understood that Iris Evans's sister was found and gave a blood sample after a BBC Horizon programme about the crash. / / -.-. They hadn't passed Curico. Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. It's reported as looking luminous and spherical, and can vary in diameter - from pea-sized to several metres long. one mystery still remains. message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. 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. (These individuals ignore the fact that almost any other triangle of a similar size, drawn anywhere else in the North Atlantic, would yield a similar if not greater number of disappearances.). A popular one is that STENDEC is an anagram of DESCENT and the letters were re-arranged due to Harmer suffering from the effects of hypoxia. One was a British diplomatic courier, a King's Messenger. [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. / . 1. It seems That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. Solve the Mystery of STENDEC STENDEC Theories On August 2, 1947, Stardust 's radio operator sent a final message in Morse code to the Chilean radio operator then on duty in Santiago. aircraft were usually referred to by their registration (in Stardusts There are theories that STENDEC was an abbreviation or acronym of a much larger phrase, and when you break it down you can imagine a whole host of sentences could be constructed using these letters. Technology Inc. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space Earlier this week Margaret Coalwood of Nottingham, now 70, was told that DNA extracted from blood samples taken from her last year had identified the remains of her cousin, Donald Checklin. 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. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. On BSAA's Transatlantic services, moreover, it was operating at the ragged edge of its range when flying westbound. 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. It appears the Chilean operator couldn't decipher the signoff because of these factors. it as an acronym or an abreviation yields little fruit. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. BBC2 9:00pm Thursday 2nd November 2000, Although science has solved 56K views 8 months ago #Disasters #History For over 50 years the fate of Flight CS-59 remained a mystery. Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. See link for the answer to this 63 year old question. In Mendoza, one startling picture published in the city's newspapers aroused particular curiosity. STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code | When a plane goes missing over the Andes Mountains in 1947, it's unusual last message leaves the world with a 70 year old mystery still waiting to be solved. Then four years ago, several Argentinians climbing Mount Tupungato stumbled across part of a Rolls Royce engine, fragments of fuselage and strips of bleached clothing. Another explanation, advanced at the time of the disappearance, - / . 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. . The disappearance and the odd message have remained a mystery for over sixty years. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). All rights reserved. Moreover, operators at the time only referred to aircraft by their registration code, which in Star Dusts case was G-AGWH., Acronym Theory 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. As mentioned in a previous theory, morse code can be easily misinterpreted if incorrectly spaced or misheard by the receiver. simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). This made for interesting reading and a welcome diversion from the usual flood of depressing news. The theory 2023 Little Green Footballs Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. As the compressed snow turned to ice, the wreckage would have been incorporated into the body of the glacier, with fragments emerging many years later and much further down the mountain. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly of mystery, confusion and intrigue ever since. Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? Her sisters, boyfriend and sons knew nothing of her illness until suddenly, during a family gathering in October 2018 at a diner in Reading The Online Photographer lead me to this article. It would have been / - /. And finally, there seems to be no reason to transmit the planes Its fate became one of the most puzzling aviation mysteries of its time. [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". The Lancastrian aircraft, with eleven people on board, never did arrive at Santiago Airport and its location remained unsolved for over fifty years. . attention, and another signing off. ETA LATE sounds like a reasonable message a plane would communicate to a control tower, although in the context of the whole sentence, it contradicts the first part completely, as they were only four minutes away from their destination. "Santiago tower even navigator doesnt exactly know" Something like "We're completely screwed.". flew at this time reports that it was common to inform the airport Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. More interestingly, the morse code for STENDEC is only one character off from instead spelling VALP, which is almost the call sign for the closest airport to Valparaiso, 110km northwest of Santiago. 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. operator to scramble the message. British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. Submissions should outline a mystery and provide a link to a more detailed review of the case such as a Wiki article or news report. The weather on the day consisted of snowstorms in the Andes Mountains with moderate to intense turbulence, whilst visual contact with the ground would have been extremely low and unfit for flying. Procedures for sending and receiving messages were and are standardised whether you are services or civilian operators.Regarding the 'mystery' surrounding Harmer's last transmission.Firstly, an operator always has in front of them a written copy of the message being sent. 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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa_EU5_gWrA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_BSAA_Avro_Lancastrian_Star_Dust_accident#cite_note-SAR_Technology_-_Aviation_Cold_Case_Response-22, https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/a-pilots-last-words-stendec/, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/stendec.html, https://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/vanished.shtml, https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/05/stendec-mystery/, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/sep/06/owenbowcott1v, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jul/08/2, http://www.sartechnology.ca/sartechnology/ST_STENDEC_ColdCase.htm, http://www.ntskeptics.org/2010/2010december/december2010.pdf, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosigns_for_Morse_code, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/sep/06/owenbowcott1. An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain. The Theory . Even if exchanges between two operators become conversational, the operator writes the reply before sending it.From this, and from standard morse procedure, Harmer's transmission would be to inform Stardust's ETA, destination city, airport code SCTI ( Los Cerillos), and conclude with prosign AR (dit dah, dit dah dit) to end transmission. 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". It was also, as OP says, unpressurized, so that passengers as well as crew had to breathe supplemental oxygen through masks while above 15,000 feet. selection of the ideas. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images. After the third time, communications ceased, and the aircraft disappeared, never reaching its final destination. Additionally, the condition of the wheels proved that the undercarriage was still retracted, suggesting controlled flight into terrain rather than an attempted emergency landing. That's also how Carole Lombard died. It was also noted that, despite being a pilot for four years and accruing a total flying time of nearly 2,000 hours for both the RAF and the BSAA, this was Cooks first flight across the Andes as Captain. Relatives of the crew and passengers aboard a British plane which plunged into an Argentinian glacier 55 years ago have been told this week their DNA samples match human remains recovered from a crash site 15,000ft up in the Andes. A Spanish magazine about UFOs appropriated STENDEK as its title, and at least one U.S. comic book illustrated the disappearance of the Stardust, pondering the meaning of STENDEC for its fascinated readers. "[12], A set of events similar to those that doomed Star Dust also caused the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in 1972 (depicted in the film Alive), although there were survivors from that crash because it involved a glancing blow to a mountainside rather than a head-on collision. "Why do so many earthquakes occur at a depth of 10km?" The most likely reality is that sending STENDEC was a mistake of some sort by Star Dusts radio operator. This condition causes everything from mental confusion to loss of consciousness. This button leads to the main index of LGF Pages, our user-submitted articles. But my maternal great . Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. See link for the answer to this 63 year old question. The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. just confirmed his time of arrival? by John . (STENDEC) this correspondent conceded that "the last bit may be a bit muddled"). Variations suggested that the crew might have been suffering from Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. Perhaps STENDEC was an abbreviation for a much longer message, an acronym sent in a hurry due to being in a crunch for time. A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). It was delivered to BSAA on 12 January 1946, was registered on 16 January as G-AGWH and given the individual aircraft name "Star Dust". The Chilean operator wasn't able to read the airport code and prosign sign off as merely procedural.Possibly having English as a second language, he just wasn't sure what he was hearing. -, Press J to jump to the feed. In morse code, there are various short-hand acronyms and abbreviations which help convey much longer messages quickly. [18], Star Dust is likely to have flown into a nearly vertical snowfield near the top of the glacier, causing an avalanche that buried the wreckage within seconds and concealed it from searchers. And even less likely that the same morse dyslexia would be repeated Any explanation for STENDEC depends on an understanding of Morse Iris Evans, who had previously served in the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") as a chief petty officer, was the flight attendant. He flew Lancaster bombers and got medals for bringing back his aircraft one time on a wing and a prayer.". / -. 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. This would mean the message he was trying to send Los Cerrillos was instead: When you look at the beginning of the words, you can notice some similarities, which shows how easy it can sometimes be to mistranslate morse code. INITIALS /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). A faulty oxygen system cant be ruled ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! The final apparently unintelligible word "STENDEC" has been a source It would be like ending a story with once upon a time., Conclusion I think the misinterpretation of the airport code is def the most plausible. The airliner will stay lost for 51 years until 1998 when mountaineers find parts of the wreckage on Mount Tupungato 50 miles east from the planes destination, Santiago. Christie could have made something of this, but the passengers were quite unwilling and unwitting victims. Various people came up with intriguing, imaginative and sometimes In 1997, an ultra-low frequency, weird but loud noise . a new clue the truth is we will never know for sure what that final course. use SOS, the internationally accepted distress signal? As might be inferred from that lineage, it was uncomfortable, noisy, and cramped. With the disappearance occurring less than a month after the now infamous Roswell incident, unexplained events such as a vanishing plane were easily connected to the possibility of alien interference. 20 passengers and crew were lost. Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. Using the The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. Their discovery revived interest in solving the mystery of what had happened to Flight CS59 and its 11 passengers and crew. More debris is expected to emerge in future, not only as a result of normal glacial motion, but also as the glacier melts. Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. Star Dust, registration G-AGWH, an Avro 691 Lancastrian 3, departed Buenos Aires for Santiago at 13.46 on 2 August 1947. Weird December 2010 Views: 31,751. End Credits. (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. All further calls were CONCLUSION For a more detailed explanation / -.-. [12], A report by an amateur radio operator who claimed to have received a faint SOS signal from Star Dust initially raised hopes that there might have been survivors,[11] but all subsequent attempts over the years to find the vanished aircraft failed. 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. The crash was a result of controlled descent into terrain. Hence we have: STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie Weird December 2010 Views: 31,837 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. Four letter ICAO codes for airports had The misunderstanding of their actual location reminds me of Uruguayan Flight 571, the subject of the book and movie Alive! British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. Star Dust crashed into Mount Tupungato, killing all aboard and burying itself in snow and ice.[1][2]. enigmatic radio message was meant to mean. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. A quality comment reply on reddit my mind truly is blown. The unit had to finish quickly. Four letter ICAO codes for airports had Just before the plane disappeared, it Was there a connection? 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. on initials. At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. Even if an equipment malfunction had occurred, what are the odds that only one word would be jumbled in the message and that it would be done so three times in exactly the same order? Part of the problem was that BSAA was operating types of aircraft that were at the extreme limits of their capabilities. Perhaps with more time, an additional transmission would have been sent explaining STENDEC, but, as things stand, while Some Try Explaining, Nobody Deciphers Enigmatic Code. Furthermore, 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. So apparently the mystery hasn't been solved, because I don't see anything in the article suggesting anyone understands what Stendec meant. / -.. / . . The fate of the aircraft and its occupants remained unknown for over fifty years, giving rise to various conspiracy theories about its disappearance. 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. STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code Spektator 13K subscribers Subscribe 20K views 1 year ago #Documentary #Mystery When a plane goes missing over the Andes Mountains in 1947, its. Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! And similarly why would an operator say ETA LATE when he had only For those who aren't familiar, a flight carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and some of their family members crashed into the Andes in 1972. Could it be that Stardust were informing Los Cerrillos that they were on course for Rodelillo Airfield near Valparaiso instead, diverging from their original route? A mix of misinterpretation and a lack of recent knowledge led to the operator instead hearing the term STENDEC, which, combined with the disappearance of the plane, led to one of South Americas greatest aviation mysteries. So apparently the mystery hasn't been solved, because I don't see anything in the article suggesting anyone understands what Stendec meant.

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