_.. . STENDECANAGRAMS Ball lightning. 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. . message from Star Dust -. the ETA. Whilst its true that the Lancastrian was unpressurised, the crew . 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. 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. An aircraft finds itself off-course and in .. "STENDEC Solved." The North Texas Skeptic. While the fate of Star Dust had finally been solved, remaining in its wake was still the mystery of the crews final messageSTENDEC. Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. For regular taxpayers, the consequence is slow customer service and processing delays. But would they repeat AR too, not just the airport code, for clarity? Full video here breaking down the story -, A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. The Chilean operator wasn't able to read the airport code and prosign sign off as merely procedural.Possibly having English as a second language, he just wasn't sure what he was hearing. 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. (ETA LATE) 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. The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. All Rights Reserved Bennett, commander of the Royal Air Force's [Pathfinders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathfinder_(RAF) during the Second World War -- it developed an unenviable record for unexplained disappearances of its airliners in flight. clear that STENDEC is not what the message was meant to say. Whilst a reasonable theory on the surface, its unfortunately also quite reasonable to discredit. 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. A Pilot's Last Words: "STENDEC" - Plane & Pilot Magazine 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? of the station they wish to contact. Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. . 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. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. This was the case in 1947 when an airliner crashed in the Andes, killing everyone aboard. See link for the answer to this 63 year old question. Discussion Since the programme transmitted we have received literally hundreds 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. NOVA Online | Vanished! | STENDEC Theories - PBS / -. 1947 BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust accident - Wikipedia A common example of this would be SOS, which is the internationally recognised distress signal in morse code to call for help. The disappearance and the odd message have remained a mystery for over sixty years. amusing messages based on using STENDEC as a series of initials: 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". Mistakenly believing they had already cleared the mountain tops, they started their descent when they were in fact still behind cloud-covered peaks. I was a radio operator aboard an R.A.N. 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. 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. Mystery solved. [21], The simplest explanation put forward to date is that the spacing of the rapidly sent message was misheard or sloppily sent. Part of the problem was that BSAA was operating types of aircraft that were at the extreme limits of their capabilities. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the . For a more detailed explanation 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. STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. All rights reserved. The Theory People all over the world had reported hundreds of flying saucer sightings during the last two weeks of June 1947. was that a small rearrangement of the dots and dashes (for example [11], In 2000, an Argentine Army expedition found additional wreckageincluding a propeller and wheels (one of which had an intact and inflated tyre)and noted that the wreckage was well localised, a fact which pointed to a head-on impact with the ground, and which also ruled out a mid-air explosion. STENDEC" That wasthe last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. 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. Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. 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. Why would the operator say end? Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. Over the next 2 years more debris and remains will be found. So mysterious was 1947 BSAA Star Dust accident - "STENDEC" : UnsolvedMysteries - reddit STENDEC - Solved?! / -. Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. As one of the pilots was dying he kept repeating, "We passed Curico," still bewildered as to how they had ended up in the peaks. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent. 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. 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. 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. Lancasters had four Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the front-line combat engine that powered the latest Spitfire and Mustang fighters. 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. A faulty oxygen system cant be ruled [6], A recovered propeller showed that the engine had been running at near-cruising speed at the time of the impact. It appears the Chilean operator couldn't decipher the signoff because of these factors. 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. 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. transmitted by the plane, reporting their position and intended 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. But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. The Horizon staff concluded that, with the possible exception of some misunderstanding based on Morse code, none of these proposed solutions was plausible. Morse transmissions prior to picking up voice communication. to imagine STENDEC being scrambled into descent in English, it is were all supplied with oxygen. a new clue the truth is we will never know for sure what that final 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. radio operator in Santiago, where the plane was due to land. The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! /-.-. Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash? Sign in to continue reading. simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . 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. (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. 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. [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. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. From this time 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. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. How police solved the mystery of a VHS tape depicting sexual assault Both men were last spotted being arrested by deputy Steve Calkins for driving without a license. One was a British diplomatic courier, a King's Messenger. [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). 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 letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . With the word not existing in international morse code, or any spoken language at the time, interpreting STENDEC has led to many varying theories. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. 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. British . 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.