/ - / . 10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved. 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". 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. / -.. / . / -.. / . 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. 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. Pages Sign In Register Forgot password? For over fifty years the disappearance ranked as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the aviation world, and a lively and inventive mythology grew up around the incident. CONCLUSION Mrs Coalwood said: "He was my older cousin, who I idolised hopelessly. Their curse was too much sky. 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. - /. UFO magazine. message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. Weird December 2010 Views: 31,751. 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. As might be inferred from that lineage, it was uncomfortable, noisy, and cramped. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. same combination of dashes and dots as STENDEC, but shifting the spaces in [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). Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash? made with the control tower at Santiago. The investigators concluded that the aircraft had not stalled. tower aircraft now descending entering cloud") Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. a new clue the truth is we will never know for sure what that final But my maternal great . 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. 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. _. INITIALS 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? method of signalling a late arrival amongst RAF radio operators.. / - / .- / .-.. / .- / - / . Another explanation, advanced at the time of the disappearance, So mysterious was 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. 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. - / . 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. British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. 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. Mysteries The most likely reality is that sending STENDEC was a mistake of some sort by Star Dusts radio operator. 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. Already a member? Yet one mystery remains:. End Credits. in other words 'EC' without the space. Operating as Flight CS-59, aka Star Dust, the four-engine aircraft was en route from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile, with 11 people on board. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. 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. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. It's reported as looking luminous and spherical, and can vary in diameter - from pea-sized to several metres long. Adding to the mystery, two Avro 691 Lancastrian aircraft had crashed during the previous seventeen months. 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. 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. 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. The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. / -. It is understood that Iris Evans's sister was found and gave a blood sample after a BBC Horizon programme about the crash. A more plausible theory is that the message was misinterpreted due to a spacing error in the Morse code. . 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. 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. State Sen. Nathan Dahm (R-OK) has penned several bills loosening gun restrictions, including the nation's first anti-red flag MUNICH (AP) The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday, insisting that justice must be served to the perpetrators. Relatives of the crew and passengers aboard a British plane which plunged into an Argentinian glacier 55 years ago have been told this week their DNA samples match human remains recovered from a crash site 15,000ft up in the Andes. 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. The word simply has no meaning in any language, not even in Morse code. 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. . simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). enigmatic radio message was meant to mean. 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. 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. The Theory -, Press J to jump to the feed. 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. Perhaps STENDEC was an abbreviation for a much longer message, an acronym sent in a hurry due to being in a crunch for time. Since the programme transmitted we have received literally hundreds Believers of this theory claim it stood for something like, Stardust tank empty, no diesel, expected crash, or, Santiago tower, emergency, now descending, entering cloud. Experts on Morse code are quick to call hogwash on this theory, however, saying that the crew would have never cryptically abbreviated an important message. - / . STENDEC - Solved?! The flight was conducted in zero-visibility conditions, so its unlikely the crew had any idea their plane was about to impact a mountainside. In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. The actual Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C Another expose from ProPublica propublica.org Bonnie Martin kept the bleeding secret for as long as she could. attention, and another signing off. [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. the sign off for a Morse code message is AR. Five of the eight British victims have been identified. Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C. _ . A Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. So apparently the mystery hasn't been solved, because I don't see anything in the article suggesting anyone understands what Stendec meant. "STENDEC" in Morse code is: / - / . The investigators concluded that the aircraft had not stalled. On BSAA's Transatlantic services, moreover, it was operating at the ragged edge of its range when flying westbound. According to experts, if an additional space had been added between the first two letters, STENDEC would translate to: ATTENTION END END OF MESSAGE. It seems a bit redundant to say END and then END OF MESSAGE, however. 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. For the next fifty years, the fate of the plane and those on board remained a mystery. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images. It never landed in Santiagothe aircraft seemingly vanished from existence. 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. between the letters). These included suggestions that the radio operator, possibly suffering from hypoxia, had scrambled the word "DESCENT" (of which "STENDEC" is an anagram); that "STENDEC" may have been the initials of some obscure phrase or that the airport radio operator had misheard the Morse code transmission despite it reportedly having been repeated multiple times. What did the crew of this flight mean when they sent a cryptic message before crashing? Lancasters had four Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the front-line combat engine that powered the latest Spitfire and Mustang fighters. The misunderstanding of their actual location reminds me of Uruguayan Flight 571, the subject of the book and movie Alive! In morse code, there are various short-hand acronyms and abbreviations which help convey much longer messages quickly. the last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer USGS. The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. 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. 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. . of Stendec. The Avro Lancastrian was a civilian version of the wartime Lancaster heavy bomber. 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. unanswered. / -.-. Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. The operator understood that Star Dust intended to land in four minutes, but the final word, STENDEC, confused him. on initials. All Rights Reserved For many years, people wondered if she'd survived the massacre that killed the rest of her family. All rights reserved. "Santiago tower message now descending entering cloud" (or "Santiago out, but seems unlikely. Hence we have: But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. At 5:41 p.m., a Chilean Morse code radio operator for the Los Cerrillos Airport received a message. / -. . / / -.-. 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. Why would the operator say end? A FINAL WORDHorizon regrets that - due to the sheer volume of correspondence When you try to send too quickly that rythm disappears. Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. [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. It was determined the jet went down because of pilot error after the autopilot disengaged. Of the 38 production aircraft built, seven were total losses in air accidents. 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. 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. 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. - - . . Theories include everything from sabotage to aliens. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent. The Horizon staff concluded that, with the possible exception of some misunderstanding based on Morse code, none of these proposed solutions was plausible. 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. 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. the operator use a calling up sign in the middle of his message? - - . Both men were last spotted being arrested by deputy Steve Calkins for driving without a license. Star Dust, registration G-AGWH, an Avro 691 Lancastrian 3, departed Buenos Aires for Santiago at 13.46 on 2 August 1947. / -. 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. 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! Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. Furthermore, [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. One of those two people was Nando Parrado and in his book "Miracle in the Andes" he describes that their flight also left in poor, inadvisable conditions. 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. 1 Pan Am Flight 7 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. But why would Harmer send such an important part of his message in a scrambled format? Things like air turbulance (in my case, rough seas) also affect that rythm. word is meaningless in almost every language, and trying to use Martin Colwell's theory on the mystery "STENDEC" This gives us the very that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. Seems very unlikely. / - / . 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. 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). of Stardusts radio operator. radio operator and/or receiver in Santiago, and playfulness on behalf The Charles Willoughby, Cooked Intel, and the Far Right. 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. Back to 'Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared' programme page. 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. Thanks SK. However, while the aircraft was unpressurized, its crew had been supplied with oxygen. Possibly because he was finishing Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. _.. . Discussion (STENDEC) 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. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code 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. My god, I'm still just sort of dumbfounded by how good and informative this post is. code. It would have been And why not Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. The crash was a result of controlled descent into terrain. Morse '._._.' Using the Various people came up with intriguing, imaginative and sometimes Using the If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. 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. Christie could have made something of this, but the passengers were quite unwilling and unwitting victims. Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code Spektator 13K subscribers Subscribe 20K views 1 year ago #Documentary #Mystery When a plane goes missing over the Andes Mountains in 1947, its. Ball lightning is a potentially dangerous atmospheric electrical phenomenon. 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. Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. The problem? it as an acronym or an abreviation yields little fruit. Thanks SK. normal for the Radio Operator to start the message by transmitting the name An aircraft finds itself off-course and in .. STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code | When a plane goes missing over the Andes Mountains in 1947, it's unusual last message leaves the world with a 70 year old mystery still waiting to be solved. 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. This one individual in particular mentioned that he asked his 80 year old father, who remembers hearing the phrase being used often by the radio operator on his ship when he served in the Merchant Marine during WWII. [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. Star Dust crashed into Mount Tupungato, killing all aboard and burying itself in snow and ice.[1][2]. The unit had to finish quickly. Subscribe now for ad-free access!Register and sign in to a free LGF account before subscribing, and your ad-free access will be automatically enabled. "[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. 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. same combination of dashes and dots as STENDEC, but shifting the spaces in But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. [23], "Stendec" redirects here. After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was found. Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! destroyer escort during the 70's.We were morse code trained. Discussion I remember him in his RAF uniform during the war. Other explanations for the appearance Back to 'Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared' programme pageTranscriptFurther information French air safety investigators concluded in a 2012 report that the tragedy likely had been caused by an odd cascade of errors. See link for the answer to this 63 year old question. 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. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly
