between the letters). While the fate of Star Dust had finally been solved, remaining in its wake was still the mystery of the crews final messageSTENDEC. . It seems the last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer
simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). 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. 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. The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. - - . in other words 'EC' without the space. 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. Using the
attention it is common to use the dots and dash for V as a calling The trekkers had abandoned their pack mules lower down, and ascended with what they could carry. was that a small rearrangement of the dots and dashes (for example 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. 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. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! "[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 Theory This button leads to the main index of LGF Pages, our user-submitted articles. 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. 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. - /. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. This is fascinating. know for certain, but I believe this is by far the most likely meaning of
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. In Britain, the news led to a hunt for surviving relatives. made with the control tower at Santiago. The chances of all of these failing are extremely low, so the theory of hypoxia and the anagram has been ruled out by many. . Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. 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? [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). Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. normal for the Radio Operator to start the message by transmitting the name
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 site had been difficult to reach. . The final apparently unintelligible word "STENDEC" has been a source 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. The mystery of the word STENDEC took its place among the great unsolved cases so beloved in the lore of urban legendry. A solution to the word "STENDEC" has not been found. Some things can be said with some degree of certainty. If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. / -.-. SAR
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. USGS. Voice The Foreign Office yesterday confirmed that after initially unsuccessful attempts, Argentinian scientists have found close family matches. So mysterious was of the station they wish to contact. 56K views 8 months ago #Disasters #History For over 50 years the fate of Flight CS-59 remained a mystery. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris Joel is a founding member and the resident keyboard wizard for Umphreys McGee AND a long-time Phish fan! Ok, so that covers the theory of the mysterious phrase, but it doesnt answer the mystery of what happened to the plane. Pages Sign In Register Forgot password? the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never
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. Thanks SK. After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was found. Charles Willoughby, Cooked Intel, and the Far Right. The Horizon staff concluded that, with the possible exception of some misunderstanding based on Morse code, none of these proposed solutions was plausible. Its not even common practice for a plane to transmit its name at the end of a routine message, so this theory also unfortunately falls flat. Discussion To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). . 1 "The Bloop" is an underwater mystery that took nearly 10 years to solve. Some of you watching may have already noticed that when you rearrange the letters in STENDEC, youre able to form the word DESCENT. [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. The mystery became an obsession of the innumerable "Bermuda Triangle" crackpots, who attribute almost all unexplained losses of ships and aircraft within a 500,000 square-mile area to paranormal activity. Whilst its true that the Lancastrian was unpressurised, the 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. 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. Several people have pointed out that At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. 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? 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. 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. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. The word STENDEC was corrupted into Stendek and became. (STENDEC) Similarly, another Morse expert has pointed out that to attract [11] The head of BSAA, Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, personally directed an unsuccessful five-day search. 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. Sometimes These Enigmas Never Decipher. The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. The radio operator, Dennis Harmer, also had a record of wartime as well as civilian service. /-.-. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable even has an entry for STENDEC. Dozens of books and articles have examined the evidence, turned it over, twisted it, rearranged the letters, and drawn a blank. by aliens. The airliner will stay lost for 51 years until 1998 when mountaineers find parts of the wreckage on Mount Tupungato 50 miles east from the planes destination, Santiago. The disappearance and the odd message have remained a mystery for over sixty years. With the disappearance occurring less than a month after the now infamous Roswell incident, unexplained events such as a vanishing plane were easily connected to the possibility of alien interference. [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. this correspondent conceded that "the last bit may be a bit muddled"). - / . 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. 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. Scherer, J. amusing messages based on using STENDEC as a series of initials: In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. / -. Plane and Pilot expands upon the vast base of knowledge and experience from aviations most reputable influencers to inspire, educate, entertain and inform. 2023 Madavor Media, LLC. This is a personal family mystery that got solved a few years ago, so nothing exciting that would have gotten media attention, haha. When you try to send too quickly that rythm disappears. Any explanation for STENDEC depends on an understanding of Morse From this time . Tragically, that wasn't the last disaster in which Bennett and the Tudor were involved. [15] During the final portion of Star Dust's flight, heavy clouds would have blocked visibility of the ground. Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? STENDEC - Solved?! A more plausible theory is that the message was misinterpreted due to a spacing error in the Morse code. 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. [9] This leg of the flight was apparently uneventful until the radio operator (Harmer) sent a routine message in Morse code to the airport in Santiago at 5:41 pm, announcing an expected arrival of 5:45 pm. And finally, there seems to be no reason to transmit the planes / / . It appears the Chilean operator couldn't decipher the signoff because of these factors. Anagram Theory Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. INITIALS Was there a connection? use SOS, the internationally accepted distress signal? No distress transmission was received; the last broadcast from the aircraft was a routine position check, about two hours before it should have reached its destination. [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. Morse transmissions prior to picking up voice communication. He flew Lancaster bombers and got medals for bringing back his aircraft one time on a wing and a prayer.". Part of the problem was that BSAA was operating types of aircraft that were at the extreme limits of their capabilities. With the plane supposedly minutes away from the airport, the final word from the Lancastrian became shrouded in mystery when the plane, along with everyone on board, vanished into thin air. Something like "We're completely screwed.". 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. 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. Ball lightning is a potentially dangerous atmospheric electrical phenomenon. normal for the Radio Operator to start the message by transmitting the name
It was delivered to BSAA on 12 January 1946, was registered on 16 January as G-AGWH and given the individual aircraft name "Star Dust". 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. Fiddling with Morse code seems to offer the best chance of getting This made for interesting reading and a welcome diversion from the usual flood of depressing news. STENDEC" That wasthe last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C. _ . Moreover, operators at the time only referred to aircraft by their registration code, which in Star Dusts case was G-AGWH., Acronym Theory There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. Christie could have made something of this, but the passengers were quite unwilling and unwitting victims. Full video here breaking down the story -, A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the
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. / - / . STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie Weird December 2010 Views: 31,837 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. See link for the answer to this 63 year old question. They had been . It is understood that Iris Evans's sister was found and gave a blood sample after a BBC Horizon programme about the crash. unanswered. A FINAL WORDHorizon regrets that - due to the sheer volume of correspondence [13], A 2000 Argentine Air Force investigation cleared Cook of any blame, concluding that the crash had resulted from "a heavy snowstorm" and "very cloudy weather", as a result of which the crew "were unable to correct their positioning". 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. Now the plane has been found we know that it wasnt spirited away Something like "We're completely screwed.". DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. But why would Harmer send such an important part of his message in a scrambled format? 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). Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. 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. Explanations based in Morse code 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. 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. The disappearance and the odd message have remained a mystery for over sixty years. DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. 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. Background 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. 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. Furthermore, why would they put ATTENTION at the end of the transmission instead of the beginning? [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. It consisted of the single word "STENDEC". reception of the signal was loud and clear but that it was given British . Star Dust, registration G-AGWH, an Avro 691 Lancastrian 3, departed Buenos Aires for Santiago at 13.46 on 2 August 1947. enigmatic radio message was meant to mean. [8], Star Dust left Buenos Aires at 1:46 pm on 2 August. 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. 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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. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the
full message sent at 17.41 hrs was as follows: 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. word is meaningless in almost every language, and trying to use 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. The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. selection of the ideas. A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). of an anagram in an otherwise routine message included a dyxlexic flew at this time reports that it was common to inform the airport Other explanations for the appearance The theory A quality comment reply on reddit my mind truly is blown. By 2002, the bodies of five of the eight British victims had been identified through DNA testing. As might be inferred from that lineage, it was uncomfortable, noisy, and cramped. losing the first two dots) yields ETA LATE - apparently a common Discussion It would have been
The unit had to finish quickly. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). The Avro Lancastrian began its life as a British Lancaster bomber in World War II. The flight was conducted in zero-visibility conditions, so its unlikely the crew had any idea their plane was about to impact a mountainside. (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. 10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved. 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. communication was only possible at this time when the aircraft was Though it had as its General Manager a pilot of exceptional distinction -- Air Vice Marshal D.C.T. Four letter ICAO codes for airports had
/ -.. / . That's also how Carole Lombard died. That would leave just "END", sandwiched between a signal attracting Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. Already a member? French air safety investigators concluded in a 2012 report that the tragedy likely had been caused by an odd cascade of errors. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code
The Improperly loaded, it crashed on landing, killing 80 of the people on board -- at the time, the worst air disaster in world history. To my mind, STENDEC was the misheard signoff by Harmer. one mystery still remains. BBC2 9:00pm Thursday 2nd November 2000, Although science has solved Another explanation, advanced at the time of the disappearance, (STENDEC) 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. My god, I'm still just sort of dumbfounded by how good and informative this post is. 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. /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. People all over the world had reported hundreds of flying saucer sightings during the last two weeks of June 1947. Again, this is the same as ST, only with different spacing.- (V) It has therefore been suggested that, in the absence of visual sightings of the ground due to the clouds, a navigational error could have been made as the aircraft flew through the jet streama phenomenon not well understood in 1947, in which high-altitude winds can blow at high speed in directions different from those of winds observed at ground level. That was
Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. 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. In 2000 the Argentine Army detachment found the debris scattered over one square kilometer, a relatively small area, so the bomb theory was discarded. of messages offering explanations of STENDEC. But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. This was the case in 1947 when an airliner crashed in the Andes, killing everyone aboard. Why would the operator say end? 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 STENDEC was an abbreviation for a much longer message, an acronym sent in a hurry due to being in a crunch for time. The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. The last two possible mistranslations both involve an input mistake of some sort, but there is another phrase which uses the exact same morse code sequence as STENDEC but with different spacing. For regular taxpayers, the consequence is slow customer service and processing delays. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space
Very good writeup! just confirmed his time of arrival? Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. to imagine STENDEC being scrambled into descent in English, it is When he asked for clarification, the crew repeated it two more times, STENDEC. 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. most of the mysteries surrounding Stardusts disappearance, The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . The most likely reality is that sending STENDEC was a mistake of some sort by Star Dusts radio operator. the sign off for a Morse code message is AR. 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. 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. of Stendec. Morse code experts we have consulted believe that it is highly unlikely A few days after Christmas in 2015, a woman in Sydney's south-west was contacted by police with shocking news. 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. 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. [10], The staff of the BBC television series Horizonwhich presented an episode in 2000 on the Star Dust disappearancereceived hundreds of messages from viewers proposing explanations of "STENDEC". 1 Dec. 2010, Volume 24, Number 12: 1-5. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code
Grand Duchess Anastasia (with her arm around her brother) is shown with the rest of the Russian royal family in 1913. You can post your own LGF Pages simply by registering a free account with us. The Lancastrian aircraft, with eleven people on board, never did arrive at Santiago Airport and its location remained unsolved for over fifty years. Back to 'Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared' programme page. "STENDEC" in Morse code is: / - / . The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. The Chilean operator remarks that Harmer sends the final transmission very quickly.A rule of morse operation is that you don't send faster than the receiving operator can decipher.It appears Harmer did send too quickly, even while repeating. destroyer escort during the 70's.We were morse code trained. - . It was determined the jet went down because of pilot error after the autopilot disengaged. _.. . It's reported as looking luminous and spherical, and can vary in diameter - from pea-sized to several metres long. They were in a remarkable state of preservation; freeze-dried by icy winds, the remains had not suffered bacteriological decay. It was also noted that, despite being a pilot for four years and accruing a total flying time of nearly 2,000 hours for both the RAF and the BSAA, this was Cooks first flight across the Andes as Captain. [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. 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.