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. [23], "Stendec" redirects here. Its civil certificate of airworthiness (CofA) number 7282 was issued on 1 January 1946. 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. most of the mysteries surrounding Stardusts disappearance, hypoxia (lack of oxygen) as the Lancastrian was unpressurised and More debris is expected to emerge in future, not only as a result of normal glacial motion, but also as the glacier melts. the disappearance of the plane - coupled with its final strange Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go. 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. They were in a remarkable state of preservation; freeze-dried by icy winds, the remains had not suffered bacteriological decay. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. 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. Tragically, that wasn't the last disaster in which Bennett and the Tudor were involved. CONCLUSION Neither men were taken to the jail. / . between the letters). (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. Christie could have made something of this, but the passengers were quite unwilling and unwitting victims. [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. 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. I remember him in his RAF uniform during the war. Several people have pointed out that Sometimes These Enigmas Never Decipher. ETA LATE sounds like a reasonable message a plane would communicate to a control tower, although in the context of the whole sentence, it contradicts the first part completely, as they were only four minutes away from their destination. radio operator in Santiago, where the plane was due to land. 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. / -.. / . [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. Though it had as its General Manager a pilot of exceptional distinction -- Air Vice Marshal D.C.T. 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. / - / . 2023 Little Green Footballs 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. But there are no old, bold pilots. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code They were so far off course they were trapped in the mountains struggling to survive for 72 days before they were rescued, and then only because of an incredible hike out of the mountains by two of the severely weakened survivors with no climbing gear or experience or any idea where they really were. Something like "We're completely screwed.". In morse code, there are various short-hand acronyms and abbreviations which help convey much longer messages quickly. "Why do so many earthquakes occur at a depth of 10km?" See link for the answer to this 63 year old question. operator to scramble the message. By Plane and Pilot Updated December 12, 2019 Save Article. It seems Another expose from ProPublica propublica.org Bonnie Martin kept the bleeding secret for as long as she could. ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. 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. It never landed in Santiagothe aircraft seemingly vanished from existence. . After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was found. Once again, no distress signal was received. losing the first two dots) yields ETA LATE - apparently a common Without an explanation the case remains a mystery. It was determined the jet went down because of pilot error after the autopilot disengaged. . 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. Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! / - / . 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. All Rights Reserved That would leave just "END", sandwiched between a signal attracting 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. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). 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. of the station they wish to contact. [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. 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. Four letter ICAO codes for airports had Some of you watching may have already noticed that when you rearrange the letters in STENDEC, youre able to form the word DESCENT. Not understanding the word "STENDEC" he queried it - . Thanks SK. . Was there a connection? that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. Martin Colwell's theory on the mystery "STENDEC" / -.. / . All Rights Reserved Several body parts were found, mostly intact due to being frozen in ice, and were later confirmed through DNA testing as passengers of Star Dust. It was the manicured hand of a young woman lying among the ice and rocks. [6], A recovered propeller showed that the engine had been running at near-cruising speed at the time of the impact. It makes me want to write out the Morse code and play with the spacing. 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. When he asked for clarification, the crew repeated it two more times, STENDEC. Adding to the mystery, two Avro 691 Lancastrian aircraft had crashed during the previous seventeen months. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly [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). /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. / -.. / . between the letters). After getting the boot from BSAA, he launched his own fly-by-night airline, Airflight Ltd., using two Tudors he'd picked up cheaply and one of which he flew himself. 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. Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go. What was radio operator Dennis Harmer, a highly trained wartime and civilian operator, trying to say? by John . But my maternal great . Ball lightning doesn't happen very often, so it hasn't been recorded under natural conditions. just confirmed his time of arrival? (ETA LATE) Americas owner-flown aircraft enthusiasts and active-pilot resource, delivered to your inbox! The misunderstanding of their actual location reminds me of Uruguayan Flight 571, the subject of the book and movie Alive! 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. Due to the poor visibility caused by the storm, its possible that the crew were unaware that their plane was on course to collide with the mountainside, and unknowingly plummeted the aircraft into the summit before eventually succumbing to the elements. radio operator getting his planes name wrong on 3 occasions. Furthermore, aircraft were usually referred to by their registration, which in Stardusts case was G-AGWH, rather than the more romantic monikers the airline had given them. Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. [10] The Chilean Air Force radio operator at Santiago airport described this transmission as coming in "loud and clear" but very fast; as he did not recognise the last word, he requested clarification and heard "STENDEC" repeated twice in succession before contact with the aircraft was lost. Before this message a series of entirely routine messages had been 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. / -.-. Mysteries by aliens. However, the mystery of the final radio message remains. UFO magazine. Mistakenly believing they had already cleared the mountain tops, they started their descent when they were in fact still behind cloud-covered peaks. This is a personal family mystery that got solved a few years ago, so nothing exciting that would have gotten media attention, haha. 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. And if there was any meaning to it, it wasnt in regards to the crash. 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. 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. [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. 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. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent. 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. Is that the one where they all started eating each other? Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. The Theory Several body parts were also discovered, most of them intact due to being preserved in ice, and were later confirmed through DNA to be the passengers and crew of Stardust. In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. 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. Pages Sign In Register Forgot password? STENDEC and Stardust have 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. Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. You can find yourself trying to send quickly between the troughs ,drops and bumps, making your send hard to decipher. much harder in Morse code.-.. / . / -. attention it is common to use the dots and dash for V as a calling ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. 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. However, while the aircraft was unpressurized, its crew had been supplied with oxygen. 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. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! After the third time, communications ceased, and the aircraft disappeared, never reaching its final destination. The word simply has no meaning in any language, not even in Morse code. communication was only possible at this time when the aircraft was 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 Chilean operator did mention how Harmers messages came through unusually fast, so there is every chance that some letters were incorrectly spaced and caused confusion to the control tower. [15] During the final portion of Star Dust's flight, heavy clouds would have blocked visibility of the ground. Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. was that a small rearrangement of the dots and dashes (for example selection of the ideas. A FINAL WORDHorizon regrets that - due to the sheer volume of correspondence Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. In 2000 the Argentine Army detachment found the debris scattered over one square kilometer, a relatively small area, so the bomb theory was discarded.