Charles Willoughby, Cooked Intel, and the Far Right. Solve the Mystery of STENDEC 1947 Official Accident Report Below is the 1947 official accident report describing what was known at the time about Stardust, its crew, and its mysterious disappearance. 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. / / -.-. Christie could have made something of this, but the passengers were quite unwilling and unwitting victims. STENDEC - Solved?! Theories include everything from sabotage to aliens. On July 3, a rancher at Roswell, New Mexico, claimed to have found a UFO crash site with four alien bodies. A common example of this would be SOS, which is the internationally recognised distress signal in morse code to call for help. The most likely reality is that sending STENDEC was a mistake of some sort by Star Dusts radio operator. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space / -.. / . An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. A Pilot's Last Words: "STENDEC" - Plane & Pilot Magazine And if there was any meaning to it, it wasnt in regards to the crash. Here's The 51 Creepiest Mysteries That Remain Unsolved To This Very Day normal for the Radio Operator to start the message by transmitting the name In 2000 the Argentine Army detachment found the debris scattered over one square kilometer, a relatively small area, so the bomb theory was discarded. Its civil certificate of airworthiness (CofA) number 7282 was issued on 1 January 1946. close to an understanding of the message. Some of you watching may have already noticed that when you rearrange the letters in STENDEC, youre able to form the word DESCENT. [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. message from Star Dust - "E.T.A. The actual Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C attention, and another signing off. But would they repeat AR too, not just the airport code, for clarity? The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. to imagine STENDEC being scrambled into descent in English, it is 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. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. [1][2], The last Morse code message sent by Star Dust was "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC". selection of the ideas. Five months after the episode described by OP, one of BSAA's Avro Tudor IV aircraft, Star Tiger, with 31 persons on board, vanished on a flight from Lisbon to Bermuda with an intermediate fuel stop in the Azores. Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash? some similarities both in Morse code and English /- /.-/ .-./ -../ ..-/ / - (Stardust) British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. And finally, there seems to be no reason to transmit the planes The Avro Lancastrian began its life as a British Lancaster bomber in World War II. 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. Morse '._._.' The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . attention it is common to use the dots and dash for V as a calling The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . The mystery of the word STENDEC took its place among the great unsolved cases so beloved in the lore of urban legendry. by aliens. This is a personal family mystery that got solved a few years ago, so nothing exciting that would have gotten media attention, haha. Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. - / . BBC2 9:00pm Thursday 2nd November 2000, Although science has solved 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. It would have been 10 Unsolved Airplane Mysteries | HowStuffWorks 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. The Star Dust Mystery Damn Interesting Its certainly reasonable that they would have jumbled their message in a hypoxic state. Between 1998 and 2000, about ten per cent of the total expected wreckage emerged from the glacier, prompting several re-examinations of the accident. 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. Ice crystals accumulated on a probe, causing it to give incorrect speed readings and the autopilot system to disengage. 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. Almost certainly Star Tiger ran out of fuel before reaching Bermuda, a consequence of stronger-than-predicted upper-level winds. The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . Also, in the 1947 report, the oxygen system was noted as being fully charged, along with nine emergency bottles before leaving Buenos Aires. 1 Dec. 2010, Volume 24, Number 12: 1-5. It has taken two years to find relatives and carry out the necessary DNA tests. Weird December 2010 Views: 31,751. 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. 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. 9 Mysterious Plane Crashes - Listverse . / -.. / . 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 few days after Christmas in 2015, a woman in Sydney's south-west was contacted by police with shocking news. 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. 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? Ball lightning. 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. At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. Thanks SK. So mysterious was the disappearance of the plane - coupled with it's final strange message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. Scherer, J. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". 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. 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. Technology Inc. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space But before that, to help understand the The fate of the aircraft and its occupants remained unknown for over fifty years, giving rise to various conspiracy theories about its disappearance. reception of the signal was loud and clear but that it was given All rights reserved. Mysteries DNA clues reveal 55-year-old secrets behind crash of the Star Dust / - / . word is meaningless in almost every language, and trying to use [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. [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. 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. For a more detailed explanation Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. Could it be that Stardust were informing Los Cerrillos that they were on course for Rodelillo Airfield near Valparaiso instead, diverging from their original route? In 2000 the Argentine Army detachment found the debris scattered over one square kilometer, a relatively small area, so the bomb theory was discarded. Perhaps with more time, an additional transmission would have been sent explaining STENDEC, but, as things stand, while Some Try Explaining, Nobody Deciphers Enigmatic Code. 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. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. Discussion Four letter ICAO codes for airports had enigmatic radio message was meant to mean. - / . He flew Lancaster bombers and got medals for bringing back his aircraft one time on a wing and a prayer.". NOVA Online | Vanished! | 1947 Official Accident Report 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. Their curse was too much sky. INITIALS The Lancastrian aircraft, with eleven people on board, never did arrive at Santiago Airport and its location remained unsolved for over fifty years. A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. 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. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent. The theory message from Star Dust -. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. in other words 'EC' without the space. that Morse transmissions were closing down. Five of the eight British victims have been identified. 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 Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). 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. Morse '._._.' 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Lancasters had four Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the front-line combat engine that powered the latest Spitfire and Mustang fighters. 1 Pan Am Flight 7 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. the ETA. - . between the letters). Star Dust, registration G-AGWH, an Avro 691 Lancastrian 3, departed Buenos Aires for Santiago at 13.46 on 2 August 1947. 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. By 2002, the bodies of five of the eight British victims had been identified through DNA testing. Several people have pointed out that . sent one final message in Morse code which was picked up by the . The North Texas Skeptic That's also how Carole Lombard died. out, but seems unlikely. 1. Pages Sign In Register Forgot password? Furthermore, why would they put ATTENTION at the end of the transmission instead of the beginning? / . If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. The misunderstanding of their actual location reminds me of Uruguayan Flight 571, the subject of the book and movie Alive! NOVA Online | Vanished! | Theories (Feb. 8, 2001) - PBS 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. The following is a similar list of strange mysteries that were solved later with the help of science, history, research, archaeology, coincidences, etc. . one mystery still remains. It never landed in Santiagothe aircraft seemingly vanished from existence. /- (ST) 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. An explanation of STENDEC .. - Fly With The Stars In morse code, there are various short-hand acronyms and abbreviations which help convey much longer messages quickly. STENDEC - Solved?! / . -, Press J to jump to the feed. this method of communication. You're right! was that a small rearrangement of the dots and dashes (for example Full video here breaking down the story -, A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. The Theory Using the 2023 Madavor Media, LLC. Using the - - . 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. It consisted of the single word "STENDEC". 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. 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. that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. / -.. / . - . Furthermore, [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. radio operator getting his planes name wrong on 3 occasions. All Rights Reserved 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. The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . 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. up sign. Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. Sign in to continue reading. That part of the puzzle wouldnt be solved until half a century later. / -.-. 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. (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. Its designer, Roy Chadwick, died in one when a prototype crashed during a test flight in 1947. 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. Without an explanation the case remains a mystery. 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. 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. between the letters). - /. "STENDEC" in Morse code is: / - / . Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. Over the next 2 years more debris and remains will be found. NOVA Online | Vanished! | Solve the Mystery of STENDEC [23], "Stendec" redirects here. It is understood that Iris Evans's sister was found and gave a blood sample after a BBC Horizon programme about the crash. 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. Americas owner-flown aircraft enthusiasts and active-pilot resource, delivered to your inbox! Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. . The flight was conducted in zero-visibility conditions, so its unlikely the crew had any idea their plane was about to impact a mountainside. The trekkers had abandoned their pack mules lower down, and ascended with what they could carry. (STENDEC) Why would the operator say end? 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. 2023 Little Green Footballs 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. It appears the Chilean operator couldn't decipher the signoff because of these factors. After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was found. 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. Below we include a A quality comment reply on reddit my mind truly is blown. / - / . of the above, please follow the link to Martin Colwell's website here - Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. Before this message a series of entirely routine messages had been You can post your own LGF Pages simply by registering a free account with us. 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 Mystery of STENDEC - Skeptoid to say on the subject:The 17.41 signal was received by Santiago only 4 minutes before One final mystery lay in the last message sent out by the Star Dust. 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. However, the mystery of the final radio message remains. In Mendoza, one startling picture published in the city's newspapers aroused particular curiosity. The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. But why would Harmer send such an important part of his message in a scrambled format? on nothing further was heard from the aircraft and no contact was [14] Human remains were also recovered, including three torsos, a foot in an ankle boot and a manicured hand. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Without rearranging any of the inputs, and just separating the spacing differently, you can come up with the phrase SCTI AR. 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. 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. It was hard work at this elevation, and the Army had supplies for only thirty-six hours. 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. _. SAR Technology - Aviation Cold Case Response course. I was a radio operator aboard an R.A.N. The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. They were flying across the Andes from east to west the pilots thought they were much further west than they were and turned north straight into the mountains and collided with a peak.

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