stendec mystery solved

Was there a connection? (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. Already a member? [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. The official 1947 report into Stardusts disappearance highlighted a number of possibilities as to what likely happened to the ill-fated flight, with multiple factors potentially playing a role in its demise. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. Furthermore, why would they put ATTENTION at the end of the transmission instead of the beginning? Star Dust, registration G-AGWH, an Avro 691 Lancastrian 3, departed Buenos Aires for Santiago at 13.46 on 2 August 1947. that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. This button leads to the main index of LGF Pages, our user-submitted articles. Five of the eight British victims have been identified. transmitted by the plane, reporting their position and intended Then nothing. Another explanation, advanced at the time of the disappearance, People all over the world had reported hundreds of flying saucer sightings during the last two weeks of June 1947. 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. 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. Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". 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. Variations suggested that the crew might have been suffering from That would leave just "END", sandwiched between a signal attracting End Credits. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). 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. [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. No trace of the missing Lancastrian aircraft, named Star Dust, could be found. The final apparently unintelligible word "STENDEC" has been a source If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . At 5:41 p.m., a Chilean Morse code radio operator for the Los Cerrillos Airport received a message. 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" in Morse code is: / - / . Moreover, operators at the time only referred to aircraft by their registration code, which in Star Dusts case was G-AGWH., Acronym Theory just confirmed his time of arrival? and had the same word repeated by the aircraft twice in succession. 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. 2023 Madavor Media, LLC. 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. However, while the aircraft was unpressurized, its crew had been supplied with oxygen. 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". 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. . Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. (STENDEC) 10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved. 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. Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. 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. Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! 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. . Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. Other explanations for the appearance And similarly why would an operator say ETA LATE when he had only Seems very unlikely. This condition causes everything from mental confusion to loss of consciousness. The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . [1][2], The last Morse code message sent by Star Dust was "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC". 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. very close to the airport, and one pilot and radio operator who 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. In 1947 the official report into Stardusts disappearance had this 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. Over the next 2 years more debris and remains will be found. Similarly, another Morse expert has pointed out that to attract most of the mysteries surrounding Stardusts disappearance, / -.. / . Star Dust crashed into Mount Tupungato, killing all aboard and burying itself in snow and ice.[1][2]. [15] During the final portion of Star Dust's flight, heavy clouds would have blocked visibility of the ground. 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. In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error. The Avro Lancastrian was a civilian version of the wartime Lancaster heavy bomber. some similarities both in Morse code and English /- /.-/ .-./ -../ ..-/ / - (Stardust) I was a radio operator aboard an R.A.N. aircraft were usually referred to by their registration (in Stardusts 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. STENDEC Solved by John L. Scherer. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! . 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. in other words 'EC' without the space. case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. 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. All Rights Reserved full message sent at 17.41 hrs was as follows: [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". Just before the plane disappeared, it 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. [22] Alternatively, the Morse spelling for "STENDEC" is one character off from instead spelling VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, 110 kilometers north of Santiago. So mysterious was This gives us the very It was hard work at this elevation, and the Army had supplies for only thirty-six hours. Using the the disappearance of the plane - coupled with its final strange flew at this time reports that it was common to inform the airport 2023 Little Green Footballs It would have been out very fast. Something like "We're completely screwed.". 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. 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. This was the case in 1947 when an airliner crashed in the Andes, killing everyone aboard. In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error. All Rights Reserved a new clue the truth is we will never know for sure what that final Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. Full video here breaking down the story - STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code [Transcript From Video Below] In 1950, one of these, Star Girl, had no fewer than 83 passengers and crew crammed into it on a charter flight from Dublin to Llandow, a low-cost airport near Cardiff in Wales. The Avro Lancastrian began its life as a British Lancaster bomber in World War II. 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. Morse transmissions prior to picking up voice communication. The Chilean radio operator at Santiago states that the '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. / -. A solution to the word "STENDEC" has not been found. message from Star Dust - "E.T.A. use SOS, the internationally accepted distress signal? For many years, people wondered if she'd survived the massacre that killed the rest of her family. Before this message a series of entirely routine messages had been that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. It is thought that the plane may have caused an avalanche upon impact, resulting in the snowy burial of the aircraft, concealing it from searchers whilst at the same time preserving it for its eventual discovery years later. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. One was a British diplomatic courier, a King's Messenger. They may be similar, but it is still hard to imagine an experienced [10] However, Star Dust never arrived, no more radio transmissions were received by the airport, and intensive efforts by both Chilean and Argentine search teams, as well as by other BSAA pilots, failed to uncover any trace of the aircraft or of the people on board. Americas owner-flown aircraft enthusiasts and active-pilot resource, delivered to your inbox! Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. The unit had to finish quickly. to say on the subject:The 17.41 signal was received by Santiago only 4 minutes before What did the crew of this flight mean when they sent a cryptic message before crashing? the plane was flying at 24000 feet, which would have led the radio 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. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space [14] Human remains were also recovered, including three torsos, a foot in an ankle boot and a manicured hand. Morse code experts we have consulted believe that it is highly unlikely But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. I remember him in his RAF uniform during the war. STENDEC was corrupted into Stendek and became the name of a Spanish British . 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. 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. 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. (STENDEC) If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. Sometimes human error leads to some of the most interesting mysteries but generally when you hear hooves you want to think horses before you think zebras. one mystery still remains. 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. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. People all over the world had reported hundreds of flying saucer sightings during the last two weeks of June 1947. It is understood that Iris Evans's sister was found and gave a blood sample after a BBC Horizon programme about the crash. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. Discussion 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. Understanding STENDEC has been the quest for many experienced and avid radio operators, with online forums dedicated to deciphering what Dennis Harmer was trying to say. STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie Weird December 2010 Views: 31,881 Tweet 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. 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. They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. 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. - . between the letters). 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. Their discovery revived. But there are no old, bold pilots. They had been . 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. In 1998, over 50 years after the disappearance of Stardust, a group of Argentine mountaineers climbing Mount Tupungato, one of the highest mountains in the Andes and roughly 50 miles east of Santiago, stumbled upon the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine of the Lancastrian. 1 Dec. 2010, Volume 24, Number 12: 1-5. code. losing the first two dots) yields ETA LATE - apparently a common The The most likely reality is that sending STENDEC was a mistake of some sort by Star Dusts radio operator. 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. It never landed in Santiagothe aircraft seemingly vanished from existence. close to an understanding of the message. With morse code being a binary combination of dots and dashes, something as simple as one or two incorrect inputs can make a drastic difference to how a word is interpreted. - . 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". 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. I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. same combination of dashes and dots as STENDEC, but shifting the spaces in Several people have pointed out that Some things can be said with some degree of certainty. / - /. If they wanted to convey distress, they would have sent an SOS., Misinterpretation Theory . Tragically, that wasn't the last disaster in which Bennett and the Tudor were involved. / -.-. Its civil certificate of airworthiness (CofA) number 7282 was issued on 1 January 1946. The misunderstanding of their actual location reminds me of Uruguayan Flight 571, the subject of the book and movie Alive! 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. -, Press J to jump to the feed. It has to be this one in my opinion. Why would However, the mystery of the final radio message remains. Their discovery revived interest in solving the mystery of what had happened to Flight CS59 and its 11 passengers and crew. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. / . The problem here though is that, even if this was the case, it would be unusual for Harmer to use a phrase which was not internationally recognised, and only specifically known to allied participants of the war. 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. . / - / . / . operator to scramble the message. [13] Some BSAA pilots, however, expressed scepticism at this theory; convinced that Cook would not have started his descent without a positive indication that he had crossed the mountains; they have suggested that strong winds may have brought down the craft in some other way. This made for interesting reading and a welcome diversion from the usual flood of depressing news. (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.). / - / . word is meaningless in almost every language, and trying to use STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. Ball lightning doesn't happen very often, so it hasn't been recorded under natural conditions. A FINAL WORDHorizon regrets that - due to the sheer volume of correspondence 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/STAR DUST Theory The radio operator, Dennis Harmer, also had a record of wartime as well as civilian service. 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! Fiddling with Morse code seems to offer the best chance of getting If so, according to their timings, they had already passed Los Cerrillos, where they could have safely landed as intended, so this doesnt seem to make much sense either. An interesting new solution to the STENDEC mystery has been proposed, as advised by listener Anders. At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. 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. "Why do so many earthquakes occur at a depth of 10km?" 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? sent one final message in Morse code which was picked up by the And if there was any meaning to it, it wasnt in regards to the crash. clear that STENDEC is not what the message was meant to say. / -. As mentioned in a previous theory, morse code can be easily misinterpreted if incorrectly spaced or misheard by the receiver. Thanks SK. By Plane and Pilot Updated December 12, 2019 Save Article. Really neat, I hadn't heard of this before. on initials. of an anagram in an otherwise routine message included a dyxlexic For regular taxpayers, the consequence is slow customer service and processing delays. Back to 'Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared' programme pageTranscriptFurther information destroyer escort during the 70's.We were morse code trained. SAR Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. 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. After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was found. 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. But my maternal great . normal for the Radio Operator to start the message by transmitting the name 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. Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. In 2000 the Argentine Army detachment found the debris scattered over one square kilometer, a relatively small area, so the bomb theory was discarded. radio operator getting his planes name wrong on 3 occasions. 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. which is identical - although with different spacings - to EC. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! attention, and another signing off. 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. 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. The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . The theory about it being a code for the airport makes a lot more sense. The names of the victims were known. The theory 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. The Lancastrian aircraft, with eleven people on board, never did arrive at Santiago Airport and its location remained unsolved for over fifty years. 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. 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.