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. Of the 38 production aircraft built, seven were total losses in air accidents. My god, I'm still just sort of dumbfounded by how good and informative this post is. Ice crystals accumulated on a probe, causing it to give incorrect speed readings and the autopilot system to disengage. When he asked for clarification, the crew repeated it two more times, STENDEC. The operator understood that Star Dust intended to land in four minutes, but the final word, STENDEC, confused him. A few days after Christmas in 2015, a woman in Sydney's south-west was contacted by police with shocking news. This gives us the very 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. /- (ST) Thanks SK. [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). The Message That Said STENDEC "ETA Santiago 17:45 hrs. The word 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. The last two possible mistranslations both involve an input mistake of some sort, but there is another phrase which uses the exact same morse code sequence as STENDEC but with different spacing. But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. (STENDEC) Become a member and get exclusive access to articles, contests and more! . Blast From the Past: The North Texas Skeptic, May 1999, Republican Senator Claims 'The Left' Will Start a Civil War Unless Federal Highway System Abolished, A Christian Health Nonprofit Saddled Thousands With Debt as It Built a Family Empire Including a Pot Farm, a Bank and an Airline, Popular Instagram Photographer Revealed as AI Fraud, Cutting IRS Funding Is a Gift to Americas Wealthiest Tax Evaders, Record 6,542 Guns Intercepted at US Airport Security in 22, Interview With Oklahoma State Sen. Nathan Dahm, US: Russia Has Committed Crimes Against Humanity in Ukraine, Joel Cummins Umphreys McGee Keyboard Rig - January 2023 [VIDEO], Oklahoma Judge Transfers Lesbian Moms Parental Rights to Her Sons Sperm Donor. So mysterious was If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . 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. 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. Several people have pointed out that hypoxia (lack of oxygen) as the Lancastrian was unpressurised and / - /. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. People all over the world had reported hundreds of flying saucer sightings during the last two weeks of June 1947. 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 wasnt until 1998 that a group of Argentine mountaineers climbing Mount Tupungato, approximately 50 miles east of Santiago, stumbled upon wreckage from the crash. The theory about it being a code for the airport makes a lot more sense. / -.. / . 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. The trekkers had abandoned their pack mules lower down, and ascended with what they could carry. Using the The STENDEC Puzzle Ever since BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust vanished on a flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago, the ending of its final transmission - STENDEC - has continued to puzzle experts and amateurs alike. In Britain, the news led to a hunt for surviving relatives. Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. / -. On 2 August 1947, Star Dust, a British South American Airways (BSAA) Avro Lancastrian airliner on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile, crashed into Mount Tupungato in the Argentine Andes. Their curse was too much sky. [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. Back to 'Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared' programme page. They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. By 2002, the bodies of five of the eight British victims had been identified through DNA testing. "STENDEC Solved." The North Texas Skeptic. . 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. 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. That was Investigators concluded that the crew, flying in a snowstorm against a powerful jet stream, had become confused about their location and believed they were closer to Santiago than they actually were. 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. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. It even inspired a new name for a UFO magazineSTENDEK. [9] This leg of the flight was apparently uneventful until the radio operator (Harmer) sent a routine message in Morse code to the airport in Santiago at 5:41 pm, announcing an expected arrival of 5:45 pm. . the plane was flying at 24000 feet, which would have led the radio Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never 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. on initials. - / . The trekkers had abandoned their pack mules lower down, and ascended with what they could carry. [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. of Stendec. The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. to say on the subject:The 17.41 signal was received by Santiago only 4 minutes before All rights reserved. Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. The unit had to finish quickly. Discussion Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the 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. Over the next 2 years more debris and remains will be found. They were in a remarkable state of preservation; freeze-dried by icy winds, the remains had not suffered bacteriological decay. know for certain, but I believe this is by far the most likely meaning of They were so far off course they were trapped in the mountains struggling to survive for 72 days before they were rescued, and then only because of an incredible hike out of the mountains by two of the severely weakened survivors with no climbing gear or experience or any idea where they really were. By Plane and Pilot Updated December 12, 2019 Save Article. USGS. 10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved. Adding to the mystery, two Avro 691 Lancastrian aircraft had crashed during the previous seventeen months. If spacing between letters is hard to distinguish, its clear to see how some characters can be accidentally mistaken for others, leading to incorrect words or phrases. 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 most widely speculated of these phrases is the following: Severe Turbulence Encountered Now Descending Emergency Crash Landing. Technology Inc. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space The Lancastrian aircraft, with eleven people on board, never did arrive at Santiago Airport and its location remained unsolved for over fifty years. 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. The final apparently unintelligible word "STENDEC" has been a source The investigators concluded that the aircraft had not stalled. . And even less likely that the same morse dyslexia would be repeated Well that was fascinating and, while kinda sad I'm not going to pretend is not kinda funny hearing you explain all the ways that the Tudor sucked shit. Five of the eight British victims have been identified. use SOS, the internationally accepted distress signal? When flying at high altitudes, oxygen molecules are harder to inhale, and if a plane is not pressurized, it can lead to hypoxia, a condition which can impair or even completely destroy your ability to function. _._. If they wanted to convey distress, they would have sent an SOS., Misinterpretation Theory 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. that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. / . The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. This button leads to the main index of LGF Pages, our user-submitted articles. radio operator getting his planes name wrong on 3 occasions. In morse code, there are various short-hand acronyms and abbreviations which help convey much longer messages quickly. The captain, Reginald Cook, was an experienced former Royal Air Force pilot with combat experience during the Second World War, as were his first officer, Norman Hilton Cook, and second officer, Donald Checklin. End Credits. Another expose from ProPublica propublica.org Bonnie Martin kept the bleeding secret for as long as she could. 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. of messages offering explanations of STENDEC. A quality comment reply on reddit my mind truly is blown. 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. Moreover, operators at the time only referred to aircraft by their registration code, which in Star Dusts case was G-AGWH., Acronym Theory The Avro Lancastrian began its life as a British Lancaster bomber in World War II. Mysteries Of Flight: The Curious Case Of Pan Am Flight 914, Fond Farewell to a Titan: The Antonov An-225, Plane & Pilot Survey: Pilots and Politics, Accident Brief: Piper PA28R Crash In Georgia. They included Palestinian, Swiss, German and British passengers, a diplomatic courier and the crew: the pilot Reginald Cooke, 44; first officer Norman Hilton Cooke, 39; radiotelegraph operator Dennis Harmer, 27; second officer Donald Checklin, 27; and Iris Evans. - - . An interesting new solution to the STENDEC mystery has been proposed, as advised by listener Anders. case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. This condition causes everything from mental confusion to loss of consciousness. On July 3, a rancher at Roswell, New Mexico, claimed to have found a UFO crash site with four alien bodies. Similarly, another Morse expert has pointed out that to attract Imagine your last communication with someone being the equivalent of covfefe and it turning into a mystery that people puzzle over for decades, I still have no clue what covfefe means and suspect people will puzzle over it for decades, British South American Airways (BSAA), the operator of the doomed aircraft, was a particularly unfortunate air carrier. 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. 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. 1. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris Joel is a founding member and the resident keyboard wizard for Umphreys McGee AND a long-time Phish fan! Then nothing. 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. / -.. / . Part of the problem was that BSAA was operating types of aircraft that were at the extreme limits of their capabilities. STENDECANAGRAMS 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 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. STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. _. 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. Four letter ICAO codes for airports had Several body parts were found, mostly intact due to being frozen in ice, and were later confirmed through DNA testing as passengers of Star Dust. No trace of the missing Lancastrian aircraft, named Star Dust, could be found. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. / - / . Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash? Several body parts were also discovered, most of them intact due to being preserved in ice, and were later confirmed through DNA to be the passengers and crew of Stardust. And similarly why would an operator say ETA LATE when he had only Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go. Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain. enigmatic radio message was meant to mean. This is a personal family mystery that got solved a few years ago, so nothing exciting that would have gotten media attention, haha. Charles Willoughby, Cooked Intel, and the Far Right. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. 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. Ball lightning doesn't happen very often, so it hasn't been recorded under natural conditions. Tragically, that wasn't the last disaster in which Bennett and the Tudor were involved. You can post your own LGF Pages simply by registering a free account with us. Are you an aviation enthusiast or pilot? For example, if you lose the first two dots in the word STENDEC, and rearrange the spacing of the letters, the word could instead be interpreted as ETA LA(E)TE, albeit with a rogue E thrown into the mix. 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. method of signalling a late arrival amongst RAF radio operators.. / - / .- / .-.. / .- / - / . One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! Almost certainly Star Tiger ran out of fuel before reaching Bermuda, a consequence of stronger-than-predicted upper-level winds. Mystery solved. The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . It would have been It has therefore been suggested that, in the absence of visual sightings of the ground due to the clouds, a navigational error could have been made as the aircraft flew through the jet streama phenomenon not well understood in 1947, in which high-altitude winds can blow at high speed in directions different from those of winds observed at ground level. On 2 August 1947, Star Dust, a British South American Airways (BSAA) Avro Lancastrian airliner on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile, crashed into Mount Tupungato in the Argentine Andes. of the above, please follow the link to Martin Colwell's website here - British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. However, the mystery of the final radio message remains. based in Morse code, and have come from people highly familiar with 'ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs STENDEC' This is fascinating. Solve the Mystery of STENDEC Readers' Theories Set #1 Posted January 31, 2001 next set. Something like "We're completely screwed.". [8], Star Dust left Buenos Aires at 1:46 pm on 2 August. Furthermore, why would they put ATTENTION at the end of the transmission instead of the beginning? 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. 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. simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). - - . Weird December 2010 Views: 31,751. Once again, no distress signal was received. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly . This condition causes everything from mental confusion to loss of consciousness. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. 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. out, but seems unlikely. British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. A faulty oxygen system cant be ruled problem, here is a website which translates English into Morse code. 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. [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. very close to the airport, and one pilot and radio operator who Star Dust crashed into Mount Tupungato, killing all aboard and burying itself in snow and ice.[1][2]. Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? Both men were last spotted being arrested by deputy Steve Calkins for driving without a license. between the letters). message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. 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. (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. Discussion A more plausible theory is that the message was misinterpreted due to a spacing error in the Morse code. The International Civil Aviation Organisation had only recently implemented the airline code for Los Cerrillos just four months prior to the event in April 1947, so its more than possible that the airports radio operator was not yet familiar with the term and failed to recognise it. [14] Human remains were also recovered, including three torsos, a foot in an ankle boot and a manicured hand. They may be similar, but it is still hard to imagine an experienced [11] The head of BSAA, Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, personally directed an unsuccessful five-day search. Something like "We're completely screwed.". (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. 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. ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. 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. . Lancasters had four Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the front-line combat engine that powered the latest Spitfire and Mustang fighters. What was radio operator Dennis Harmer, a highly trained wartime and civilian operator, trying to say? the sign off for a Morse code message is AR. word is meaningless in almost every language, and trying to use After the third time, communications ceased, and the aircraft disappeared, never reaching its final destination. All these variations seem implausible to a greater or lesser extent. The investigators concluded that the aircraft had not stalled. 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. Scherer, J. Without an explanation the case remains a mystery. Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C. _ . For a more detailed explanation [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. 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. That's also how Carole Lombard died. Some things can be said with some degree of certainty. normal for the Radio Operator to start the message by transmitting the name destroyer escort during the 70's.We were morse code trained. the last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer 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. between the letters). Plane and Pilot expands upon the vast base of knowledge and experience from aviations most reputable influencers to inspire, educate, entertain and inform. The word simply has no meaning in any language, not even in Morse code. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris Joel is a founding member and the resident keyboard wizard for Umphreys McGee AND a long-time Phish fan! The disappearance of Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos Two men (unrelated, who didn't know each other) disappeared from Naples, Florida three months apart under the exact same circumstances. 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". amusing messages based on using STENDEC as a series of initials: and had the same word repeated by the aircraft twice in succession. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. [3][pageneeded], Star Dust carried six passengers and a crew of five on its final flight. 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". Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, STENDEC - The Worlds Most Mysterious Morse Code, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathfinder_(RAF). STENDEC Solved by John L. Scherer. CONCLUSION Neither men were taken to the jail. It was the manicured hand of a young woman lying among the ice and rocks. Furthermore, message from Star Dust - "E.T.A. 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. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent.

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