The radio operator misheard the signal. 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. By 2002, the bodies of five of the eight British victims had been identified through DNA testing. 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. The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. NOVA Online | Vanished! | STENDEC Theories - PBS I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. that a radio operator would resort to convoluted messages based Iris Evans, who had previously served in the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") as a chief petty officer, was the flight attendant. on nothing further was heard from the aircraft and no contact was / - / . [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. An interesting new solution to the STENDEC mystery has been proposed, as advised by listener Anders. Morse transmissions prior to picking up voice communication. . Bennett, commander of the Royal Air Force's [Pathfinders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathfinder_(RAF) during the Second World War -- it developed an unenviable record for unexplained disappearances of its airliners in flight. On Saturday 2nd August 1947, at around 1:45pm, an Avro Lancastrian Mk.III passenger plane known as Stardust departed from Buenos Aires, Argentina to make a roughly 3 hour 45 minute trip to Santiago, Chile. _. and had the same word repeated by the aircraft twice in succession. . A solution to the word "STENDEC" has not been found. You're right! Improperly loaded, it crashed on landing, killing 80 of the people on board -- at the time, the worst air disaster in world history. Don Bennett, its manager, had already been fired by then, partly as a result of his insistence to all and sundry that Star Tiger was a victim of sabotage and that the British Government, for unknown but nefarious reasons of its own, was covering up the crime. 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. "[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. Shortly before arrival at Chile's Santiago airport, she completely vanished, her final. To my mind, STENDEC was the misheard signoff by Harmer. . / . most of the mysteries surrounding Stardusts disappearance, 'ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs STENDEC' 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. Below we include a The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never In Mendoza, one startling picture published in the city's newspapers aroused particular curiosity. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. At around 5:41pm, after transmitting routine communications to the plane as usual, the control tower at Los Cerrillos Airport in Santiago received this morse code message from Stardust: Perplexed by the final word in the telegram, the Chilean operator requested Stardusts radio officer, Dennis Harmer, to relay the message back to him, only to hear the same word, STENDEC, repeated loud and clearly twice in succession. SCTI is the international airline code for Los Cerrillos Airport, and AR is a commonly used prosign for the word OUT, or End Of Transmission. tower aircraft now descending entering cloud") [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). - - . Explanations based in Morse code . 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. Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. [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. Variations suggested that the crew might have been suffering from 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. The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . 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. / / -.-. However, while the aircraft was unpressurized, its crew had been supplied with oxygen. "Why do so many earthquakes occur at a depth of 10km?" Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C. _ . / -.. / . use SOS, the internationally accepted distress signal? The Horizon staff concluded that, with the possible exception of some misunderstanding based on Morse code, none of these proposed solutions was plausible. The chances of all of these failing are extremely low, so the theory of hypoxia and the anagram has been ruled out by many. "Santiago tower even navigator doesnt exactly know" The Lancastrian aircraft, with eleven people on board, never did arrive at Santiago Airport and its location remained unsolved for over fifty years. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. The unit had to finish quickly. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space Various people came up with intriguing, imaginative and sometimes Solve the Mystery of STENDEC Readers' Theories Set #1 Posted January 31, 2001 next set. The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. It was hard work at this elevation, and the Army had supplies for only thirty-six hours. What did the crew of BSAA Flight CS-59 mean when they sent and repeated the cryptic message STENDEC via Morse code seconds before crashing? An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain. Fiddling with Morse code seems to offer the best chance of getting As for the Avro Tudor, its safety record was deplorable even at the time. They were finally grounded in 1959, unsurprisingly after yet another ex-BSAA Tudor flew into a Turkish mountain, for reasons that remain unclear, killing all on board. [6] Marta Limpert, a German migr, was the only passenger known for certain to have initially boarded Star Mist in London[7] before changing aircraft in Buenos Aires to continue on to Santiago with the other passengers. - / . Other explanations for the appearance DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. But before that, to help understand the It was the manicured hand of a young woman lying among the ice and rocks. 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. It was concluded that, being his first Trans-Andean flight in command, and in view of the weather conditions, Cook should not have crossed via the direct route, and despite the absence of a wreckage, the plane likely perished somewhere along the snowy peaks of the Andes Mountains. Once again, no distress signal was received. '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. The Lancastrian was an unpressurized aircraft, meaning that the crew and passengers could have been subject to hypoxia had their oxygen system failed, and so some suggest that this may have led to Harmer sending parts of his final message in a confused state. Back to 'Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared' programme page. 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). The But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. One final mystery lay in the last message sent out by the Star Dust. _._. Its not even common practice for a plane to transmit its name at the end of a routine message, so this theory also unfortunately falls flat. The site had been difficult to reach. Become a member and get exclusive access to articles, contests and more! Why would the operator say end? Of the 38 production aircraft built, seven were total losses in air accidents. 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. Martin Colwell's theory on the mystery "STENDEC" The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . 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. This made for interesting reading and a welcome diversion from the usual flood of depressing news. This gives us the very STENDEC Solved by John L. Scherer. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. 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. This gives us the very STENDEC is the same Morse as SCTI AR if you don't consider any spacing between characters. 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. The experienced crew of the "Stardust" apparently realized the plane was off course in a northerly direction (it was found eighty kilometers off its flight path), or they purposely departed from the charted route to avoid bad weather. by aliens. 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. After this, British civil aviation authorities withdrew the Tudor's certification to carry passengers, and the few remaining examples concluded their operational service as cargo and tanker aircraft. Then nothing. Discussion Thanks SK. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! It's possible that the desire to descend as soon as possible to a level at which the passengers could breathe normally may have factored into Star Dust's premature departure from a safe crossing altitude. / -. Both in London and in Buenos Aires, the pilot, Reginald Cook, had been briefed not to take this option if bad weather prevailed, but despite this advice, Cook had chosen to fly Stardust along this central route. - / . The crew of Stardust, including the radio operator Harmer, had all served in the RAF previously during WWII, so if this phrase is true, then it is possible that they were all familiar with the term and used it in a time of crisis. were all supplied with oxygen. 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. Hence we have: The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. Now the plane has been found we know that it wasnt spirited away The Theory Ball lightning. The Message That Said STENDEC "ETA Santiago 17:45 hrs. Whilst its true that the Lancastrian was unpressurised, the crew 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. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. 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? / -.-. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent. More Mysterious Disappearances That Were Later Solved 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. The word simply has no meaning in any language, not even in Morse code. 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. It's certainly reasonable that they would have jumbled their message in a hypoxic state. operator to scramble the message. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. The accident aircraft, an Avro 691 Lancastrian 3, was built as constructor's number 1280 for the Argentine Ministry of Supply to carry thirteen passengers, and first flew on 27 November 1945. After getting the boot from BSAA, he launched his own fly-by-night airline, Airflight Ltd., using two Tudors he'd picked up cheaply and one of which he flew himself. I was a radio operator aboard an R.A.N. "Stardust tank empty no diesel expected crash" This sentence now makes perfect sense, with Harmer announcing that they were expected to arrive in Santiago at 17:45 hours, at Los Cerrillos Airport. / -.. / . . case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. It would have been / -.-. 1947 BSAA Star Dust accident - "STENDEC" : UnsolvedMysteries - reddit normal for the Radio Operator to start the message by transmitting the name INITIALS I couldnt find a source for this, but according to theorists online, this was a known phrase for allied fighter pilots in WWII for if their plane was about to crash land. To put it simply, Cook chose the worst route possible in consideration of the conditions, which more than likely played a key role in the planes disappearance. On August 2, 1947, the "Stardust," a Lancastrian III passenger plane with eleven people on board, was almost four hours into its flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile. The Americas owner-flown aircraft enthusiasts and active-pilot resource, delivered to your inbox! Voice STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) - LGF Pages / -. message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. the disappearance of the plane - coupled with its final strange Just before the plane disappeared, it Each letter in morse code consists of a number of unique dots and dashes, so to scramble a word like descent in such a way is highly unlikely, especially three times in succession. 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. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code This page has been archived and is no longer updated. This button leads to the main index of LGF Pages, our user-submitted articles. to imagine STENDEC being scrambled into descent in English, it is Their curse was too much sky. [14] Human remains were also recovered, including three torsos, a foot in an ankle boot and a manicured hand. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. In 2000 the Argentine Army detachment found the debris scattered over one square kilometer, a relatively small area, so the bomb theory was discarded. So mysterious was the disappearance of the plane - coupled with it's final strange message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. The final apparently unintelligible word "STENDEC" has been a source To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). The names of the victims were known. For years it was thought to have been mistyped but it is now thought to be a second world war morse code acronym for: "Severe Turbulence Encountered, Now Descending, Emergency Crash-landing". Using the Any explanation for STENDEC depends on an understanding of Morse End Credits. 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. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. It was firstly noted that the Trans-Andean journey from Buenos Aires to Santiago can be taken via three routes: The Central (and most direct) via Mendoza, The Southern via Planchon and The Northern via San Juan. The radio operator meant to say Stardust. The central route via Mendoza was considered to be the quickest of the three, yet potentially the most dangerous depending on weather conditions. 10 of the Strangest Mysteries That Were Solved Later - Unbelievable Facts / . Explaining the unexplained: 10 famous mysteries solved In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error. . This is a personal family mystery that got solved a few years ago, so nothing exciting that would have gotten media attention, haha. A person suffering hypoxia may possibly make the same mistake consistently three times in succession but is very unlikely to create an anagram of the intended word. 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. / -.. / . Another expose from ProPublica propublica.org Bonnie Martin kept the bleeding secret for as long as she could. Plane and Pilot builds on more than 50 years of serving pilots and owners of aircraft with the goal of empowering our readers to improve their knowledge and enthusiasm for aviation. STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) - LGF Pages 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. NOVA Online | Vanished! | Theories (Jan. 31, 2001) - PBS In 1997, an ultra-low frequency, weird but loud noise . 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. Due to the poor visibility caused by the storm, its possible that the crew were unaware that their plane was on course to collide with the mountainside, and unknowingly plummeted the aircraft into the summit before eventually succumbing to the elements. 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. sent one final message in Morse code which was picked up by the
Greenup County Mugshots Busted Newspaper, Articles S