Grand Duchess Anastasia (with her arm around her brother) is shown with the rest of the Russian royal family in 1913. British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. Charles Willoughby, Cooked Intel, and the Far Right. STENDEC/STAR DUST Theory At 5:41 p.m., a Chilean Morse code radio operator for the Los Cerrillos Airport received a message. Although the larger mystery was finally solved, many still wonder how experienced pilots (there were three on board) lost control of the aircraft in a seemingly manageable situation. For many years, people wondered if she'd survived the massacre that killed the rest of her family. An aircraft finds itself off-course and in .. [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. It has to be this one in my opinion. (STENDEC). "Why do so many earthquakes occur at a depth of 10km?" 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. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space Both men were last spotted being arrested by deputy Steve Calkins for driving without a license. You can post your own LGF Pages simply by registering a free account with us. / -. [15] During the final portion of Star Dust's flight, heavy clouds would have blocked visibility of the ground. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. What are some SOLVED mysteries? : r/AskReddit Once again, no distress signal was received. Bennett finished his life as a supporter, and occasional candidate, for a variety of xenophobic and extremist political parties -- a sad end for one of the world's greatest pilots and air navigators of the 1930s and 1940s. 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. Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. Theories include everything from sabotage to aliens. Many people wrote pointing out that STENDEC is an anagram of descent. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images. Its designer, Roy Chadwick, died in one when a prototype crashed during a test flight in 1947. They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. [citation needed], Mistakenly assuming their ground speed to be faster than it really was, the crew might have deduced that they had already safely crossed the Andes, and so commenced their descent to Santiago, whereas in fact they were still a considerable distance to the east-north-east and were approaching the cloud-enshrouded Tupungato Glacier at high speed. But would they repeat AR too, not just the airport code, for clarity? The Foreign Office yesterday confirmed that after initially unsuccessful attempts, Argentinian scientists have found close family matches. STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. Four letter ICAO codes for airports had Full video here breaking down the story - STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code [Transcript From Video Below] "STENDEC Solved." The North Texas Skeptic. [11] The head of BSAA, Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, personally directed an unsuccessful five-day search. [4], Star Dust's last flight was the final leg of BSAA Flight CS59, which had started in London on an Avro York named Star Mist on 29 July 1947, landing in Buenos Aires on 1 August. 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. When Harmer and his crew sent their final message to Los Cerrillos, they had no idea that they were seconds away from a fatal impact. I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. That would leave just "END", sandwiched between a signal attracting "Santiago tower message now descending entering cloud" (or "Santiago 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. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. Another explanation, advanced at the time of the disappearance, STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) Adding to the mystery, two Avro 691 Lancastrian aircraft had crashed during the previous seventeen months. Several people have pointed out that [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. But there are no old, bold pilots. Become a member and get exclusive access to articles, contests and more! The unit had to finish quickly. Star Dust crashed into Mount Tupungato, killing all aboard and burying itself in snow and ice.[1][2]. In Mendoza, one startling picture published in the city's newspapers aroused particular curiosity. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. Technology Inc. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space 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. The Star Dust Mystery Damn Interesting "[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. Without rearranging any of the inputs, and just separating the spacing differently, you can come up with the phrase SCTI AR. As one of the pilots was dying he kept repeating, "We passed Curico," still bewildered as to how they had ended up in the peaks. 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. That's also how Carole Lombard died. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. Over the next 2 years more debris and remains will be found. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. 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. 10 of the Strangest Mysteries That Were Solved Later - Unbelievable Facts that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. The fate of the British South American Airways flight, which disappeared in a snowstorm on August 2 1947 en route from Buenos Aires to Chile, was for decades surrounded by rumours of escaping Nazi spies and stolen gold. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. of messages offering explanations of STENDEC. British . 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. 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. 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 would have been You can post your own LGF Pages simply by registering a free account with us. In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. losing the first two dots) yields ETA LATE - apparently a common 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. Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? 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. name at the end of a routine message. Part of the problem was that BSAA was operating types of aircraft that were at the extreme limits of their capabilities. Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C. _ . The public, still reeling from the now-famous flying saucer incident in Roswell, New Mexico, a few weeks earlier, went wild with theories, speculating everything from sabotage to alien abduction. After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was found. STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. Five of the eight British victims have been identified. 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. 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. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! Below we include a makes clear, modern science has answered most of the questions surrounding the 1947 crash of the civilian aircraft Stardust in the Andes east of Santiago, Chile. 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. - /. Though it had as its General Manager a pilot of exceptional distinction -- Air Vice Marshal D.C.T. 1. / -. use SOS, the internationally accepted distress signal? I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. It even inspired a new name for a UFO magazineSTENDEK. which is identical - although with different spacings - to EC. 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.". The most widely speculated of these phrases is the following: Severe Turbulence Encountered Now Descending Emergency Crash Landing. . From this time clear that STENDEC is not what the message was meant to say. message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. After the third time, communications ceased, and the aircraft disappeared, never reaching its final destination. It was hard work at this elevation, and the Army had supplies for only thirty-six hours. The problem? the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never / - / . STENDEC and STAR DUST are coded similarly in both English and Morse code, causing some to theorize that Harmer sent one when he actually meant the other. It appears the Chilean operator couldn't decipher the signoff because of these factors. Something like "We're completely screwed.". 2023 Little Green Footballs 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. simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). The operator understood that Star Dust intended to land in four minutes, but the final word, STENDEC, confused him. (STENDEC) All trained morse operators have their own, distinct send rythm, which you quickly get to know. were all supplied with oxygen. SAR communication was only possible at this time when the aircraft was know for certain, but I believe this is by far the most likely meaning of 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. 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. Scherer, J. made with the control tower at Santiago. case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. But before that, to help understand the 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. More debris is expected to emerge in future, not only as a result of normal glacial motion, but also as the glacier melts. 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. out, but seems unlikely. I remember him in his RAF uniform during the war. Investigators concluded that the crew, flying in a snowstorm against a powerful jet stream, must have become confused about their location and believed they were closer to their destination then they actually were, with the crash being the result of a controlled descent into terrain. Thanks SK. 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. on nothing further was heard from the aircraft and no contact was Another noticeable similarity is that the word STENDEC has some resemblance to the word STARDUST, and perhaps Harmer misspelled the name of the aircraft in morse code. the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never Things like air turbulance (in my case, rough seas) also affect that rythm. of Stendec. 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. This is, in my opinion, the most plausible theory of what STENDEC was supposed to be. sent one final message in Morse code which was picked up by the What was experienced radio operator Dennis Harmer trying to say? Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. 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. [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. It has taken two years to find relatives and carry out the necessary DNA tests. / . The trekkers had abandoned their pack mules lower down, and ascended with what they could carry. Whilst its possible that STENDEC could mean any one of these phrases, theres nothing definitive I can find which suggests that this phrase ever meant anything previously, making it more unlikely that this word was used intentionally at all. . 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. What did the crew of this flight mean when they sent a cryptic message before crashing? 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. They may be similar, but it is still hard to imagine an experienced 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. NOVA Online | Vanished! | 1947 Official Accident Report 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. It would have been Morse '._._.' 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. Other explanations for the appearance On BSAA's Transatlantic services, moreover, it was operating at the ragged edge of its range when flying westbound. Discussion Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. the disappearance of the plane - coupled with its final strange Its civil certificate of airworthiness (CofA) number 7282 was issued on 1 January 1946. No distress transmission was received; the last broadcast from the aircraft was a routine position check, about two hours before it should have reached its destination. The Mystery of STENDEC - YouTube Avro Lancastrian (Public domain image)It was a story borne out all too often in the annals of aviation disasters. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. - / . . A few years later, more debris was found on the mountain, suggesting that the plane had made a head-on impact with the ground due to the close proximity and condition of the wreckage. No trace of the missing Lancastrian aircraft, named Star Dust, could be found.