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. 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. End Credits. method of signalling a late arrival amongst RAF radio operators.. / - / .- / .-.. / .- / - / . The operator understood that Star Dust intended to land in four minutes, but the final word, STENDEC, confused him. 'Star Dust' did, however, broadcast a last, cryptic, Morse message; "STENDEC", which was received by Santiago Airport at 17:41 hrs - just four minutes before it's planned landing time. / -.-. There's still no explanation for the loss of Star Ariel, but so many things went wrong with Tudors on such a regular basis that its disappearance is hardly to be wondered at. Voice The Theory 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. 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. With the word not existing in international morse code, or any spoken language at the time, interpreting STENDEC has led to many varying theories. 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. Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. The Avro Lancastrian began its life as a British Lancaster bomber in World War II. Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash? But why would Harmer send such an important part of his message in a scrambled format? "STENDEC Solved." The North Texas Skeptic. 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. . Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. / - / . that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. - . transmitted by the plane, reporting their position and intended
10 of the Strangest Mysteries That Were Solved Later - Unbelievable Facts Its designer, Roy Chadwick, died in one when a prototype crashed during a test flight in 1947. - /. 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. / -.. / . [14] Human remains were also recovered, including three torsos, a foot in an ankle boot and a manicured hand. 10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. A faulty oxygen system cant be ruled It's certainly reasonable that they would have jumbled their message in a hypoxic state. Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. [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. Five of the eight British victims have been identified. The radio operator, Dennis Harmer, also had a record of wartime as well as civilian service. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. Among the grisly remains scattered over a radius of more than a mile on the glacier were three human torsos, a foot in an ankle boot and a hand with fingers outstretched. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. The Chilean radio operator at Santiago states that the Whilst its true that the Lancastrian was unpressurised, the crew 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. Dear NOVA, I am a radio amateur who actively uses the Morse Code. 20 passengers and crew were lost. It was hard work at this elevation, and the Army had supplies for only thirty-six hours. The word simply has no meaning in any language, not even in Morse code. Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . /- (ST) 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. The Horizon staff concluded that, with the possible exception of some misunderstanding based on Morse code, none of these proposed solutions was plausible. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. [16] If the airliner, which had to cross the Andes mountain range at 24,000 feet (7,300m), had entered the jet-stream zonewhich in this area normally blows from the west and south-west, resulting in the aircraft encountering a headwindthis would have significantly decreased the aircraft's ground speed. by aliens. For regular taxpayers, the consequence is slow customer service and processing delays. 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.
The STENDEC Puzzle | Science 2.0 10 Unsolved Airplane Mysteries | HowStuffWorks to say on the subject:The 17.41 signal was received by Santiago only 4 minutes before 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". 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 Morse code, determining accurate spacing between characters is vital to properly interpret the message; "STENDEC" uses exactly the same dot/dash sequence as "SCTI AR" (the four-letter code for Los Cerrillos Airport in Santiago, "over"). The investigators concluded that the aircraft had not stalled. that Morse transmissions were closing down. Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. / -.. / . 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. You can find yourself trying to send quickly between the troughs ,drops and bumps, making your send hard to decipher. . Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the
This gives us the very
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. Four letter ICAO codes for airports had
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. Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. Four letter ICAO codes for airports had
For many years, people wondered if she'd survived the massacre that killed the rest of her family. 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. enigmatic radio message was meant to mean. communication was only possible at this time when the aircraft was See link for the answer to this 63 year old question. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. A
Morse code experts we have consulted believe that it is highly unlikely However, while the aircraft was unpressurized, its crew had been supplied with oxygen. Something like "We're completely screwed.". Full video here breaking down the story - STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code [Transcript From Video Below] 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.
Top 10 Intriguing Mysteries Of South America - Listverse 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. - . One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century!
Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. it as an acronym or an abreviation yields little fruit.
10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved | HowStuffWorks One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! At around 5:41pm, after transmitting routine communications to the plane as usual, the control tower at Los Cerrillos Airport in Santiago received this morse code message from Stardust: Perplexed by the final word in the telegram, the Chilean operator requested Stardusts radio officer, Dennis Harmer, to relay the message back to him, only to hear the same word, STENDEC, repeated loud and clearly twice in succession. Sometimes These Enigmas Never Decipher. . It was also, as OP says, unpressurized, so that passengers as well as crew had to breathe supplemental oxygen through masks while above 15,000 feet. The names of the victims were known. A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Read on these 10 strange mysteries that were solved later. As for the Avro Tudor, its safety record was deplorable even at the time. 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. Since the programme transmitted we have received literally hundreds In morse code, there are various short-hand acronyms and abbreviations which help convey much longer messages quickly. word is meaningless in almost every language, and trying to use The unit had to finish quickly.
1947 BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust accident - Wikipedia 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. 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. 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. However, the mystery of the final radio message remains. French air safety investigators concluded in a 2012 report that the tragedy likely had been caused by an odd cascade of errors. 1. Adding to the mystery, two Avro 691 Lancastrian aircraft had crashed during the previous seventeen months. of messages offering explanations of STENDEC. The chances of all of these failing are extremely low, so the theory of hypoxia and the anagram has been ruled out by many. [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. As mentioned previously, the standard morse code for a distress signal is SOS, which is much easier and quicker to communicate than STENDEC. All Rights Reserved A few days after Christmas in 2015, a woman in Sydney's south-west was contacted by police with shocking news. Didn't the test Tudor flight crash because the aileron controls had been reversed (e.g trying to roll right rolled the aircraft left) or am I thinking of a different British test aircraft crash. That part of the puzzle wouldnt be solved until half a century later. / -.. / . destroyer escort during the 70's.We were morse code trained. On July 3, a rancher at Roswell, New Mexico, claimed to have found a UFO crash site with four alien bodies. They were in a remarkable state of preservation; freeze-dried by icy winds, the remains had not suffered bacteriological decay. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. 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. "Systems to the end navigation depends entirely on circle" (although attention, and another signing off. People all over the world had reported hundreds of flying saucer sightings during the last two weeks of June 1947. 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. 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. / -. The crew of Stardust, including the radio operator Harmer, had all served in the RAF previously during WWII, so if this phrase is true, then it is possible that they were all familiar with the term and used it in a time of crisis. 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. They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. Another expose from ProPublica propublica.org Bonnie Martin kept the bleeding secret for as long as she could. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). Become a member and get exclusive access to articles, contests and more! ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. 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. between the letters). This button leads to the main index of LGF Pages, our user-submitted articles. An aircraft finds itself off-course and in .. radio operator in Santiago, where the plane was due to land. Scherer, J. STENDEC" That wasthe last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. 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. / . - / . course. / -.-. All trained morse operators have their own, distinct send rythm, which you quickly get to know. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. You're right! Both men were last spotted being arrested by deputy Steve Calkins for driving without a license. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. 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. Ok, so that covers the theory of the mysterious phrase, but it doesnt answer the mystery of what happened to the plane. Was there a connection? While the fate of Star Dust had finally been solved, remaining in its wake was still the mystery of the crews final messageSTENDEC. The Message That Said STENDEC "ETA Santiago 17:45 hrs. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. The site had been difficult to reach. A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). 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. [6], A recovered propeller showed that the engine had been running at near-cruising speed at the time of the impact. Solve the Mystery of STENDEC Readers' Theories Set #1 Posted January 31, 2001 next set. Variations suggested that the crew might have been suffering from
STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) 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. _.. . Their curse was too much sky. [23], "Stendec" redirects here. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. 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. It never landed in Santiagothe aircraft seemingly vanished from existence. Thanks SK. The mystery of the word STENDEC took its place among the great unsolved cases so beloved in the lore of urban legendry. the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never
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. / - / . STENDECANAGRAMS Weird December 2010 Views: 31,751. It was concluded that, being his first Trans-Andean flight in command, and in view of the weather conditions, Cook should not have crossed via the direct route, and despite the absence of a wreckage, the plane likely perished somewhere along the snowy peaks of the Andes Mountains. Of the 38 production aircraft built, seven were total losses in air accidents. A solution to the word "STENDEC" has not been found. of Stendec. [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. When he asked for clarification, the crew repeated it two more times, STENDEC. The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. / -. Whilst this possibility lends true to the first half of the word, the rest does not match up with this theory, and considering it was sent through and received the exact same three times over, its hard to imagine this error occurring on both ends. Similarly, another Morse expert has pointed out that to attract
Here's The 51 Creepiest Mysteries That Remain Unsolved To This Very Day . [17] One of the pilots recalled that "we had all been warned not to enter cloud over the mountains as the turbulence and icing posed too great a threat. and had the same word repeated by the aircraft twice in succession. On BSAA's Transatlantic services, moreover, it was operating at the ragged edge of its range when flying westbound. / - /. 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. / - / . Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? It also seems clear that the message was not anticipating a crash, I was a radio operator aboard an R.A.N. The fate of the aircraft and its occupants remained unknown for over fifty years, giving rise to various conspiracy theories about its disappearance. (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was 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. 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. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. 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. by John . For a more detailed explanation
Lancasters had four Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the front-line combat engine that powered the latest Spitfire and Mustang fighters. Really neat, I hadn't heard of this before. It's possible that the desire to descend as soon as possible to a level at which the passengers could breathe normally may have factored into Star Dust's premature departure from a safe crossing altitude. of the station they wish to contact. Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! Iris Evans, who had previously served in the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") as a chief petty officer, was the flight attendant. The theory about it meaning emergency crash landing is interesting but given a lack of sources outside of a few people telling anecdotes I don't know how believable it is. On Saturday 2nd August 1947, at around 1:45pm, an Avro Lancastrian Mk.III passenger plane known as Stardust departed from Buenos Aires, Argentina to make a roughly 3 hour 45 minute trip to Santiago, Chile. Are you an aviation enthusiast or pilot? / -.. / . radio operator and/or receiver in Santiago, and playfulness on behalf STENDEC is the same Morse as SCTI AR if you don't consider any spacing between characters. In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error.
1947 BSAA Star Dust accident - "STENDEC" : UnsolvedMysteries - reddit Now the plane has been found we know that it wasnt spirited away At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. Back to 'Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared' programme page. Whilst a reasonable theory on the surface, its unfortunately also quite reasonable to discredit. It has to be this one in my opinion. 5 STENDEC Another mystery involving a plane played out on August 2, 1947. The Theory If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. Whilst its possible that STENDEC could mean any one of these phrases, theres nothing definitive I can find which suggests that this phrase ever meant anything previously, making it more unlikely that this word was used intentionally at all. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning.
NOVA Online | Vanished! | Theories (Jan. 31, 2001) - PBS SAR Technology - Aviation Cold Case Response "Stardust tank empty no diesel expected crash" By 2002, the bodies of five of the eight British victims had been identified through DNA testing. 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. 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. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. Some politicians have irresponsibly suggested that every new IRS employee will be a gun-toting enforcement agent. between the letters). 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. Something like "We're completely screwed.". British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. Yet one mystery remains:. Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. Solve the Mystery of STENDEC Readers' Theories Set #3 Posted February 8, 2001 previous set The word STENDEC means: "Severe Turbulence Encountered, Now Descending, Emergency Crash-Landing.". .
/ -. For years it was thought to have been mistyped but it is now thought to be a second world war morse code acronym for: "Severe Turbulence Encountered, Now Descending, Emergency Crash-landing". problem, here is a website which translates English into Morse code. 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. An interesting new solution to the STENDEC mystery has been proposed, as advised by listener Anders. In Mendoza, one startling picture published in the city's newspapers aroused particular curiosity. Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. on nothing further was heard from the aircraft and no contact was 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.
How police solved the mystery of a VHS tape depicting sexual assault 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. In 1947 the official report into Stardusts disappearance had this Several people have pointed out that 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. "Santiago tower even navigator doesnt exactly know" 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. 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. I personally believe that the word was a misinterpretation of the code, but theories span far and wide on what the now notorious phrase stood for.