For those who aren't familiar, a flight carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and some of their family members crashed into the Andes in 1972. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. Neither men were taken to the jail. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the On BSAA's Transatlantic services, moreover, it was operating at the ragged edge of its range when flying westbound. amusing messages based on using STENDEC as a series of initials: 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. At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. 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. Another explanation, advanced at the time of the disappearance, The fate of the British South American Airways flight, which disappeared in a snowstorm on August 2 1947 en route from Buenos Aires to Chile, was for decades surrounded by rumours of escaping Nazi spies and stolen gold. The Morse '._._.' / - / . At 5:41 p.m., a Chilean Morse code radio operator for the Los Cerrillos Airport received a message. Then nothing. The radio operator, Dennis Harmer, also had a record of wartime as well as civilian service. They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. Their curse was too much sky. However, the mystery of the final radio message remains. They may be similar, but it is still hard to imagine an experienced If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . / -.-. / -.-. 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. the operator use a calling up sign in the middle of his message? 10 'Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved. 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. 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. 2023 Little Green Footballs / -. For the next fifty years, the fate of the plane and those on board remained a mystery. Was there a connection? - /. Mrs Coalwood said: "He was my older cousin, who I idolised hopelessly. Christie could have made something of this, but the passengers were quite unwilling and unwitting victims. 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. Their curse was too much sky. by John . 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. The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. 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. by aliens. He flew Lancaster bombers and got medals for bringing back his aircraft one time on a wing and a prayer.". As for the Avro Tudor, its safety record was deplorable even at the time. A solution to the word "STENDEC" has not been found. Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! radio operator and/or receiver in Santiago, and playfulness on behalf were all supplied with oxygen. Both in London and in Buenos Aires, the pilot, Reginald Cook, had been briefed not to take this option if bad weather prevailed, but despite this advice, Cook had chosen to fly Stardust along this central route. 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 Avro Lancastrian began its life as a British Lancaster bomber in World War II. 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. up sign. very close to the airport, and one pilot and radio operator who What did the crew of this flight mean when they sent a cryptic message before crashing? The actual More debris is expected to emerge in future, not only as a result of normal glacial motion, but also as the glacier melts. 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. The Foreign Office yesterday confirmed that after initially unsuccessful attempts, Argentinian scientists have found close family matches. A FINAL WORDHorizon regrets that - due to the sheer volume of correspondence clear that STENDEC is not what the message was meant to say. It's reported as looking luminous and spherical, and can vary in diameter - from pea-sized to several metres long. But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. - . Also, in the 1947 report, the oxygen system was noted as being fully charged, along with nine emergency bottles before leaving Buenos Aires. 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. The unit had to finish quickly. All Rights Reserved While the fate of Star Dust had finally been solved, remaining in its wake was still the mystery of the crews final messageSTENDEC. case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. . The word The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. 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. This is, in my opinion, the most plausible theory of what STENDEC was supposed to be. 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. Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place in 1998, when mountain climbers in the Andes found the planes Rolls-Royce engine. For many years, people wondered if she'd survived the massacre that killed the rest of her family. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. of Stardusts radio operator. 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. It was the manicured hand of a young woman lying among the ice and rocks. (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. 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. 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. . It seems made with the control tower at Santiago. 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. the plane was flying at 24000 feet, which would have led the radio 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. 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. Again, this is the same as ST, only with different spacing.- (V) simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). tower aircraft now descending entering cloud") Technology Inc. recognized signoff or 'end of message' signal was 'AR' (with no space "STENDEC Solved." The North Texas Skeptic. But there are no old, bold pilots. As might be inferred from that lineage, it was uncomfortable, noisy, and cramped. The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. That was Mistakenly believing they had already cleared the mountain tops, they started their descent when they were in fact still behind cloud-covered peaks. - - . code. Part of the problem was that BSAA was operating types of aircraft that were at the extreme limits of their capabilities. The word STENDEC was corrupted into Stendek and became. "Why do so many earthquakes occur at a depth of 10km?" If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites, Back to 'Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared' programme pageTranscriptFurther information, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. same combination of dashes and dots as STENDEC, but shifting the spaces in A more plausible theory is that the message was misinterpreted due to a spacing error in the Morse code. . So apparently the mystery hasn't been solved, because I don't see anything in the article suggesting anyone understands what Stendec meant. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. [6] Marta Limpert, a German migr, was the only passenger known for certain to have initially boarded Star Mist in London[7] before changing aircraft in Buenos Aires to continue on to Santiago with the other passengers. But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. . 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. If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. 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. [11] The head of BSAA, Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, personally directed an unsuccessful five-day search. Something like "We're completely screwed.". [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. name at the end of a routine message. In the late 1990s, pieces of wreckage from the missing aircraft began to emerge from the glacial ice. One final mystery lay in the last message sent out by the Star Dust. All further calls were 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. message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. [8], Star Dust left Buenos Aires at 1:46 pm on 2 August. (ETA LATE) The site had been difficult to reach. 2023 Madavor Media, LLC. Improperly loaded, it crashed on landing, killing 80 of the people on board -- at the time, the worst air disaster in world history. that Morse transmissions were closing down. / / -.-. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. The site had been difficult to reach. 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). Another expose from ProPublica propublica.org Bonnie Martin kept the bleeding secret for as long as she could. Any explanation for STENDEC depends on an understanding of Morse An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. All Rights Reserved STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) - LGF Pages 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. flew at this time reports that it was common to inform the airport How police solved the mystery of a VHS tape depicting sexual assault. The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. 20 passengers and crew were lost. Another expose from ProPublica propublica.org Bonnie Martin kept the bleeding secret for as long as she could. Tragically, that wasn't the last disaster in which Bennett and the Tudor were involved. message from Star Dust - "E.T.A. 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? 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. Below we include a Of the 38 production aircraft built, seven were total losses in air accidents. / - / . simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). Discussion I was a radio operator aboard an R.A.N. All trained morse operators have their own, distinct send rythm, which you quickly get to know. [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". What was radio operator Dennis Harmer, a highly trained wartime and civilian operator, trying to say? Read on these 10 strange mysteries that were solved later. - . After this, British civil aviation authorities withdrew the Tudor's certification to carry passengers, and the few remaining examples concluded their operational service as cargo and tanker aircraft. 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. 'ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs STENDEC' out very fast. 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. This theory is an easy one to break apart. 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. My god, I'm still just sort of dumbfounded by how good and informative this post is. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. "Stardust tank empty no diesel expected crash" Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. 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. know for certain, but I believe this is by far the most likely meaning of A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). much harder in Morse code.-.. / . Why would the operator say end? / - / . Furthermore, whilst it is relatively easy 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. Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. This gives us the very Furthermore, STENDEC was corrupted into Stendek and became the name of a Spanish You can post your own LGF Pages simply by registering a free account with us. USGS. losing the first two dots) yields ETA LATE - apparently a common Background 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. / -. 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. 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. the ETA. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly Perhaps STENDEC was an abbreviation for a much longer message, an acronym sent in a hurry due to being in a crunch for time. That's also how Carole Lombard died. Things like air turbulance (in my case, rough seas) also affect that rythm. On August 2, 1947, the crew of a British South American Airways (BSAA) Lancastrian, an airliner version of the Avro Lancaster WWII bomber, sent a cryptic message. The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. 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.