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. In morse code, there are various short-hand acronyms and abbreviations which help convey much longer messages quickly. Several people have pointed out that / . "Stardust tank empty no diesel expected crash" At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. enigmatic radio message was meant to mean. Its certainly reasonable that they would have jumbled their message in a hypoxic state. Once again, no distress signal was received. BBC2 9:00pm Thursday 2nd November 2000, Although science has solved / / -.-. This gives us the very The fate of the aircraft and its occupants remained unknown for over fifty years, giving rise to various conspiracy theories about its disappearance. Very good writeup! Become a member and get exclusive access to articles, contests and more! / -.. / . 'ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs STENDEC' By 2002, the bodies of five of the eight British victims had been identified through DNA testing. The [3][pageneeded], Star Dust carried six passengers and a crew of five on its final flight. All Rights Reserved / -. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. SAR that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. of Stendec. I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. . code. This is a personal family mystery that got solved a few years ago, so nothing exciting that would have gotten media attention, haha. the sign off for a Morse code message is AR. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. 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. The chances of all of these failing are extremely low, so the theory of hypoxia and the anagram has been ruled out by many. If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. STENDEC. It would be the last anyone ever heard from Star Dust. So mysterious was the disappearance of the plane - coupled with it's final strange message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. Thanks SK. 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. 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. "Santiago tower even navigator doesnt exactly know" flew at this time reports that it was common to inform the airport 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. Perhaps STENDEC was an abbreviation for a much longer message, an acronym sent in a hurry due to being in a crunch for time. 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. 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. 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. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. 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. 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. otherwise it would not have been repeated three times. 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 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. - / . Between 1998 and 2000, about ten per cent of the total expected wreckage emerged from the glacier, prompting several re-examinations of the accident. It even inspired a new name for a UFO magazineSTENDEK. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Furthermore, whilst it is relatively easy But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. So mysterious was It seems But there are no old, bold pilots. a new clue the truth is we will never know for sure what that final STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. by aliens. some similarities both in Morse code and English /- /.-/ .-./ -../ ..-/ / - (Stardust) Despite Stardusts fate now fully resolved, the mystery of STENDEC is still argued to this day, with no definitive conclusion on what Dennis Harmer was intending to communicate that evening. A faulty oxygen system cant be ruled between the letters). Morse transmissions prior to picking up voice communication. this method of communication. The theory is the pilot mistakenly plotted their course as if they were leaving from a different airport, and it led to them crashing into a mountain. (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. of messages offering explanations of STENDEC. That part of the puzzle wouldnt be solved until half a century later. 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. All further calls were The site had been difficult to reach. Something like "We're completely screwed.". From this time Its civil certificate of airworthiness (CofA) number 7282 was issued on 1 January 1946. This theory is an easy one to break apart. [11], In 2000, an Argentine Army expedition found additional wreckageincluding a propeller and wheels (one of which had an intact and inflated tyre)and noted that the wreckage was well localised, a fact which pointed to a head-on impact with the ground, and which also ruled out a mid-air explosion. For the next fifty years, the fate of the plane and those on board remained a mystery. / - (Descent) In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. The flight was conducted in zero-visibility conditions, so its unlikely the crew had any idea their plane was about to impact a mountainside. "Why do so many earthquakes occur at a depth of 10km?" That was attention, and another signing off. Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). 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. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly 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. Neither men were taken to the jail. 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. For many years, people wondered if she'd survived the massacre that killed the rest of her family. STENDEC Solved by John L. Scherer. Whilst a reasonable theory on the surface, its unfortunately also quite reasonable to discredit. 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. [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. 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. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. 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. Full video here breaking down the story -, A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. All rights reserved. 5 STENDEC Another mystery involving a plane played out on August 2, 1947. The names of the victims were known. 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. As only one young woman was on board, it was assumed to have been that of Iris Moreen Evans, a 26-year-old from the Rhondda valley. this correspondent conceded that "the last bit may be a bit muddled"). 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. 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. 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. . If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. Solve the Mystery of STENDEC Readers' Theories Set #1 Posted January 31, 2001 next set. While the fate of Star Dust had finally been solved, remaining in its wake was still the mystery of the crews final messageSTENDEC. Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. 1 "The Bloop" is an underwater mystery that took nearly 10 years to solve. ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. [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. amusing messages based on using STENDEC as a series of initials: Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash? So apparently the mystery hasn't been solved, because I don't see anything in the article suggesting anyone understands what Stendec meant. 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. A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! 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. on nothing further was heard from the aircraft and no contact was The actual Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C Just before the plane disappeared, it 56K views 8 months ago #Disasters #History For over 50 years the fate of Flight CS-59 remained a mystery. All these variations seem implausible to a greater or lesser extent. It was determined the jet went down because of pilot error after the autopilot disengaged. Firstly, despite it being easy to rearrange STENDEC quickly in English text, doing the same in morse code is much more complex and highly implausible due to the nature of the language. full message sent at 17.41 hrs was as follows: In 1997, an ultra-low frequency, weird but loud noise . 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. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. 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. That's also how Carole Lombard died. 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. A solution to the word "STENDEC" has not been found. / -.. / . 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.