On this ill-fated day, a British South American Airways airliner called Star Dust carrying six passengers and five crew members crashed during its journey from Buenos Aires to Santiago. Why would - /. "[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 following is a similar list of strange mysteries that were solved later with the help of science, history, research, archaeology, coincidences, etc. (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.). Furthermore, up sign. 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. Iris Evans, who had previously served in the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") as a chief petty officer, was the flight attendant. Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. UFO magazine. After the third time, communications ceased, and the aircraft disappeared, never reaching its final destination. And similarly why would an operator say ETA LATE when he had only the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never 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. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images. Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash? An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain. [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. same combination of dashes and dots as STENDEC, but shifting the spaces in 1 "The Bloop" is an underwater mystery that took nearly 10 years to solve. unanswered. The word simply has no meaning in any language, not even in Morse code. This is fascinating. But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. So mysterious was Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. / - (Descent) 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). One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! The theory 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. 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. Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. 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. The central route via Mendoza was considered to be the quickest of the three, yet potentially the most dangerous depending on weather conditions. 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. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). The names of the victims were known. The flight was conducted in zero-visibility conditions, so its unlikely the crew had any idea their plane was about to impact a mountainside. [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. Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was found. The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. A solution to the word "STENDEC" has not been found. 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. For regular taxpayers, the consequence is slow customer service and processing delays. A common example of this would be SOS, which is the internationally recognised distress signal in morse code to call for help. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. Grand Duchess Anastasia (with her arm around her brother) is shown with the rest of the Russian royal family in 1913. It also seems clear that the message was not anticipating a crash, / -.-. 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. 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. Improperly loaded, it crashed on landing, killing 80 of the people on board -- at the time, the worst air disaster in world history. Why would the operator say end? 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. On July 3, a rancher at Roswell, New Mexico, claimed to have found a UFO crash site with four alien bodies. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent. BBC2 9:00pm Thursday 2nd November 2000, Although science has solved 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. [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. [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. What was experienced radio operator Dennis Harmer trying to say? Then nothing. 10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved. . Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the Are you an aviation enthusiast or pilot? hypoxia (lack of oxygen) as the Lancastrian was unpressurised and 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. The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. 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. 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. word is meaningless in almost every language, and trying to use You can post your own LGF Pages simply by registering a free account with us. to say on the subject:The 17.41 signal was received by Santiago only 4 minutes before Fiddling with Morse code seems to offer the best chance of getting The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. This theory is an easy one to break apart. Not understanding the word "STENDEC" he queried it Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly 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. Possibly because he was finishing problem, here is a website which translates English into Morse code. All Rights Reserved 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. 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. 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. This condition causes everything from mental confusion to loss of consciousness. 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. 1 Dec. 2010, Volume 24, Number 12: 1-5. The actual In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! 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. message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. 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. Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. / - /. What was radio operator Dennis Harmer, a highly trained wartime and civilian operator, trying to say? Once again, no distress signal was received. full message sent at 17.41 hrs was as follows: 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.