The radio operator meant to say Stardust. Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. 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. But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. 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. Presumed to have crash landed somewhere along the route, a five day effort began by both Chilean and Argentine search teams, including fellow BSAA pilots, yet no trace of the aircraft or its passengers were found. / - /. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the 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 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. In 1997, an ultra-low frequency, weird but loud noise . - / . which is identical - although with different spacings - to EC. The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. Background Now the plane has been found we know that it wasnt spirited away What was radio operator Dennis Harmer, a highly trained wartime and civilian operator, trying to say? . The message was repeated-STENDEC, then transmitted a third time. 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. Various people came up with intriguing, imaginative and sometimes [11] The head of BSAA, Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, personally directed an unsuccessful five-day search. up sign. 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. This button leads to the main index of LGF Pages, our user-submitted articles. . On July 3, a rancher at Roswell, New Mexico, claimed to have found a UFO crash site with four alien bodies. 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. Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. STENDEC is the same Morse as SCTI AR if you don't consider any spacing between characters. three times.STENDEC/Stardust Americas owner-flown aircraft enthusiasts and active-pilot resource, delivered to your inbox! 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. Also, in the 1947 report, the oxygen system was noted as being fully charged, along with nine emergency bottles before leaving Buenos Aires. All further calls were A FINAL WORDHorizon regrets that - due to the sheer volume of correspondence 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. How police solved the mystery of a VHS tape depicting sexual assault. ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. this method of communication. In Mendoza, one startling picture published in the city's newspapers aroused particular curiosity. Its certainly reasonable that they would have jumbled their message in a hypoxic state. Almost certainly Star Tiger ran out of fuel before reaching Bermuda, a consequence of stronger-than-predicted upper-level winds. Ball lightning. full message sent at 17.41 hrs was as follows: However, the mystery of the final radio message remains. The flight itself was the last leg of a journey which originated from London, with the trip across the Atlantic taking place in a York aircraft, transferring to the Stardust for the crossing of the Andes Mountains. End Credits. An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain. It was hard work at this elevation, and the Army had supplies for only thirty-six hours. Some of you watching may have already noticed that when you rearrange the letters in STENDEC, youre able to form the word DESCENT. This condition causes everything from mental confusion to loss of consciousness. simple message SCTI AR (or in layman's terms "Santiago, over"). 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). 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. 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. If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . I thought this had been solved in a documentary I watched. makes clear, modern science has answered most of the questions surrounding the 1947 crash of the civilian aircraft Stardust in the Andes east of Santiago, Chile. With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. 1 "The Bloop" is an underwater mystery that took nearly 10 years to solve. Could there be more to the story of Star Dusts crash? 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. 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. 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. between the letters). As mentioned previously, the standard morse code for a distress signal is SOS, which is much easier and quicker to communicate than STENDEC. Star Dust, registration G-AGWH, an Avro 691 Lancastrian 3, departed Buenos Aires for Santiago at 13.46 on 2 August 1947. [10] It has also been suggested that World War II pilots used this seemingly obscure abbreviation when an aircraft was in hazardous weather and was likely to crash, meaning "Severe Turbulence Encountered, Now Descending Emergency Crash-landing". But the budgetary toll of persistent underfunding is unmistakable. A quality comment reply on reddit my mind truly is blown. most of the mysteries surrounding Stardusts disappearance, case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. problem, here is a website which translates English into Morse code. 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. 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. Some things can be said with some degree of certainty. 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. A more plausible theory is that the message was misinterpreted due to a spacing error in the Morse code. Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. 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 was the case in 1947 when an airliner crashed in the Andes, killing everyone aboard. Already a member? [23], "Stendec" redirects here. NOVA Online | Vanished! | 1947 Official Accident Report Firstly, despite it being easy to rearrange STENDEC quickly in English text, doing the same in morse code is much more complex and highly implausible due to the nature of the language. All Rights Reserved Mrs Coalwood said: "He was my older cousin, who I idolised hopelessly. radio operator getting his planes name wrong on 3 occasions. 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". At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. 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. An interesting new solution to the STENDEC mystery has been proposed, as advised by listener Anders. message from Star Dust -. 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. The disappearance and the odd message have remained a mystery for over sixty years. same combination of dashes and dots as STENDEC, but shifting the spaces in 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. More Mysterious Disappearances That Were Later Solved By 2002, the bodies of five of the eight British victims had been identified through DNA testing. This would mean the message he was trying to send Los Cerrillos was instead: When you look at the beginning of the words, you can notice some similarities, which shows how easy it can sometimes be to mistranslate morse code. Things like air turbulance (in my case, rough seas) also affect that rythm. Then nothing. The . / - / . / . 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. SAR [1][2], The last Morse code message sent by Star Dust was "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC". They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. You're right! . / -.. / . Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. flew at this time reports that it was common to inform the airport And why not 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. They were in a remarkable state of preservation; freeze-dried by icy winds, the remains had not suffered bacteriological decay. destroyer escort during the 70's.We were morse code trained. on initials. 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. After the third time, communications ceased, and the aircraft disappeared, never reaching its final destination. It seems 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. that final message from the ill-fated Lancastrian. [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". In the late 1990s, pieces of wreckage from the missing aircraft began to emerge from the glacial ice. a new clue the truth is we will never know for sure what that final [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. Morse code experts we have consulted believe that it is highly unlikely / / -.-. Five of the eight British victims have been identified. _. 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. 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 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. Charles Willoughby, Cooked Intel, and the Far Right. Grand Duchess Anastasia (with her arm around her brother) is shown with the rest of the Russian royal family in 1913. The Message That Said STENDEC "ETA Santiago 17:45 hrs. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). 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. 1947 BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust accident - Wikipedia course. Well that was fascinating and, while kinda sad I'm not going to pretend is not kinda funny hearing you explain all the ways that the Tudor sucked shit. transmitted by the plane, reporting their position and intended 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. 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? A A popular photographer who has amassed almost 30,000 followers on Instagram has admitted that his portraits are actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. Los Cerrillos airport Santiago was given was SCTI. / -.. / . the last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. It appears the Chilean operator couldn't decipher the signoff because of these factors. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. 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. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code DNA samples from relatives of the victims subsequently identified four passengers and crew. communication was only possible at this time when the aircraft was 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. Why would the operator say end? With a diplomat on board, the press freely speculated that a bomb had exploded in mid-flight. Mysteries Of Flight: The Curious Case Of Pan Am Flight 914, Fond Farewell to a Titan: The Antonov An-225, Plane & Pilot Survey: Pilots and Politics, Accident Brief: Piper PA28R Crash In Georgia. STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code - YouTube Something about how the pilots were originally British Airways pilots and that Stendec actually meant something in British Airways terminology. of Stardusts radio operator. out, but seems unlikely. STENDEC Solved (Mystery message from 1947 Andes plane crash) Christie could have made something of this, but the passengers were quite unwilling and unwitting victims. They had been . know for certain, but I believe this is by far the most likely meaning of That was Iris Evans, who had previously served in the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") as a chief petty officer, was the flight attendant. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. A Pilot's Last Words: "STENDEC" - Plane & Pilot Magazine / -.-. British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. of messages offering explanations of STENDEC. name at the end of a routine message. 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. between the letters). 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 by John L. Scherer. 20 passengers and crew were lost. 9 Mysterious Plane Crashes - Listverse [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. . Thanks SK. (STENDEC) STENDECANAGRAMS 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. The Stardust could not be raised and no wreckage could be found. 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. . USGS. And even less likely that the same morse dyslexia would be repeated The most likely reality is that sending STENDEC was a mistake of some sort by Star Dusts radio operator. They may be similar, but it is still hard to imagine an experienced In the absence of any hard evidence, numerous theories aroseincluding rumours of sabotage (compounded by the later disappearance of two other aircraft also belonging to BSAA);[13] speculation that Star Dust might have been blown up to destroy diplomatic documents being carried by the King's Messenger;[13] or even the suggestion that Star Dust had been taken or destroyed by a UFO (an idea fuelled by unresolved questions about the flight's final Morse code message). 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. But there are no old, bold pilots. The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon - Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared The actual otherwise it would not have been repeated three times. Similarly, another Morse expert has pointed out that to attract Listener Feedback: Provisos, Addenda, and Quid Pro Quos - Skeptoid 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. Another expose from ProPublica propublica.org Bonnie Martin kept the bleeding secret for as long as she could. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa_EU5_gWrA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_BSAA_Avro_Lancastrian_Star_Dust_accident#cite_note-SAR_Technology_-_Aviation_Cold_Case_Response-22, https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/a-pilots-last-words-stendec/, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/stendec.html, https://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/vanished.shtml, https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/05/stendec-mystery/, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/sep/06/owenbowcott1v, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jul/08/2, http://www.sartechnology.ca/sartechnology/ST_STENDEC_ColdCase.htm, http://www.ntskeptics.org/2010/2010december/december2010.pdf, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosigns_for_Morse_code, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/sep/06/owenbowcott1. The Avro Lancastrian was a civilian version of the wartime Lancaster heavy bomber. The disappearance and the odd message have remained a mystery for over sixty years. Bennett finished his life as a supporter, and occasional candidate, for a variety of xenophobic and extremist political parties -- a sad end for one of the world's greatest pilots and air navigators of the 1930s and 1940s. . Full video here breaking down the story - STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code [Transcript From Video Below] 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. message from Star Dust - "E.T.A. / -.. / . STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code Spektator 13K subscribers Subscribe 20K views 1 year ago #Documentary #Mystery When a plane goes missing over the Andes Mountains in 1947, its. The site had been difficult to reach. Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. Their curse was too much sky. 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. Though it had as its General Manager a pilot of exceptional distinction -- Air Vice Marshal D.C.T. All Rights Reserved on nothing further was heard from the aircraft and no contact was (0), By Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie. 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. "Santiago tower even navigator doesnt exactly know" 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. Furthermore, whilst it is relatively easy 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! Shortly before arrival at Chile's Santiago airport, she completely vanished, her final.