A ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. The radio operator meant to say Stardust. Star Dust crashed into Mount Tupungato, killing all aboard and burying itself in snow and ice.[1][2]. It consisted of the single word "STENDEC". So apparently the mystery hasn't been solved, because I don't see anything in the article suggesting anyone understands what Stendec meant. Its meaning, however, is astonishingly simple. / . The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. 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. of the station they wish to contact. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! that Morse transmissions were closing down. The final apparently unintelligible word "STENDEC" has been a source - / . 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. Similarly, another Morse expert has pointed out that to attract . STENDEC/STAR DUST Theory [21], The simplest explanation put forward to date is that the spacing of the rapidly sent message was misheard or sloppily sent. 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. Fiddling with Morse code seems to offer the best chance of getting / -.-. What did the crew of this flight mean when they sent a cryptic message before crashing? / -.. / . the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never this method of communication. 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. 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. 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. Earlier this week Margaret Coalwood of Nottingham, now 70, was told that DNA extracted from blood samples taken from her last year had identified the remains of her cousin, Donald Checklin. [6], A recovered propeller showed that the engine had been running at near-cruising speed at the time of the impact. As the compressed snow turned to ice, the wreckage would have been incorporated into the body of the glacier, with fragments emerging many years later and much further down the mountain. Solve the Mystery of STENDEC Readers' Theories Set #1 Posted January 31, 2001 next set. Whilst many accepted that the fate of Stardust and its crew had been settled, the absence of a wreckage, along with the mysterious circumstances surrounding its final message, lead to widespread speculation, with theories spanning from sabotage to extraterrestrial in nature. Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. 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? The fate of the aircraft and its occupants remained unknown for over fifty years, giving rise to various conspiracy theories about its disappearance. On 2 August 1947, Star Dust, a British South American Airways (BSAA) Avro Lancastrian airliner on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile, crashed into Mount Tupungato in the Argentine Andes. An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain. Voice What was radio operator Dennis Harmer, a highly trained wartime and civilian operator, trying to say? of Stendec. If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . "Santiago tower message now descending entering cloud" (or "Santiago [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. [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. 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 trekkers had abandoned their pack mules lower down, and ascended with what they could carry. 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. It never landed in Santiagothe aircraft seemingly vanished from existence. otherwise it would not have been repeated three times. And similarly why would an operator say ETA LATE when he had only Iris Evans, who had previously served in the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") as a chief petty officer, was the flight attendant. 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. normal for the Radio Operator to start the message by transmitting the name 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. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. Something like "We're completely screwed.". 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. - - . Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? Sometimes human error leads to some of the most interesting mysteries but generally when you hear hooves you want to think horses before you think zebras. Without an explanation the case remains a mystery. A Pilot's Last Words: "STENDEC" - Plane & Pilot Magazine Hence we have: While the fate of Star Dust had finally been solved, remaining in its wake was still the mystery of the crews final messageSTENDEC. losing the first two dots) yields ETA LATE - apparently a common the last message received from Star Dust, sent by Radio Officer The mystery of the word STENDEC took its place among the great unsolved cases so beloved in the lore of urban legendry. / - (Descent) Martin Colwell's theory on the mystery "STENDEC" A FINAL WORDHorizon regrets that - due to the sheer volume of correspondence /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. It was the manicured hand of a young woman lying among the ice and rocks. Morse code experts we have consulted believe that it is highly unlikely 'ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs STENDEC' 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! It was hard work at this elevation, and the Army had supplies for only thirty-six hours. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. 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. 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. Could it be that Stardust were informing Los Cerrillos that they were on course for Rodelillo Airfield near Valparaiso instead, diverging from their original route? Theories include everything from sabotage to aliens. This is fascinating. If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. 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. / -.. / . Once again, no distress signal was received. 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. 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. Full video here breaking down the story - STENDEC - The World's Most Mysterious Morse Code [Transcript From Video Below] Read on these 10 strange mysteries that were solved later. Americas owner-flown aircraft enthusiasts and active-pilot resource, delivered to your inbox! The theory Explaining the unexplained: 10 famous mysteries solved The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place-ALP-a perfect match in Morse. Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the radio operator getting his planes name wrong on 3 occasions. Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared 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. You're right! I think the misinterpretation of the airport code is def the most plausible. . NOVA Online | Vanished! | Theories (Jan. 31, 2001) - PBS The unit had to finish quickly. message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. Any explanation for STENDEC depends on an understanding of Morse Moreover, operators at the time only referred to aircraft by their registration code, which in Star Dusts case was G-AGWH., Acronym Theory INITIALS Again, this is the same as ST, only with different spacing.- (V) What are some SOLVED mysteries? : r/AskReddit After the third time, communications ceased, and the aircraft disappeared, never reaching its final destination. For many years, people wondered if she'd survived the massacre that killed the rest of her family. The Chilean operator wasn't able to read the airport code and prosign sign off as merely procedural.Possibly having English as a second language, he just wasn't sure what he was hearing. This button leads to the main index of LGF Pages, our user-submitted articles. 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. In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error. The Lancastrian aircraft, with eleven people on board, never did arrive at Santiago Airport and its location remained unsolved for over fifty years. The Horizon staff concluded that, with the possible exception of some misunderstanding based on Morse code, none of these proposed solutions was plausible. So mysterious was the disappearance of the plane - coupled with it's final strange message - that Stardust became entwined in UFO theories. All Rights Reserved British Overseas Airways G-AGLX (the registration number) went down on March 23, 1946, and British Overseas Airways G-AGMF crashed on August 20. amusing messages based on using STENDEC as a series of initials: To my mind, STENDEC was the misheard signoff by Harmer. This theory is an easy one to break apart. 1. 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. In the late 1990s, pieces of wreckage from the missing aircraft began to emerge from the glacial ice. But my maternal great . And if there was any meaning to it, it wasnt in regards to the crash. Top 10 Intriguing Mysteries Of South America - Listverse A quality comment reply on reddit my mind truly is blown. three times.STENDEC/Stardust Five of the eight British victims have been identified. STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. Anagram Theory For example, if you lose the first two dots in the word STENDEC, and rearrange the spacing of the letters, the word could instead be interpreted as ETA LA(E)TE, albeit with a rogue E thrown into the mix. Full video here breaking down the story -, A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. . _.. . Ball lightning is a potentially dangerous atmospheric electrical phenomenon. The Chilean radio operator at Santiago states that the 20 passengers and crew were lost. flew at this time reports that it was common to inform the airport / / -.-. 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. 1 Pan Am Flight 7 2023 Little Green Footballs Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. One of the two main landing wheels was still fully inflated after a half century! STENDEC was corrupted into Stendek and became the name of a Spanish - /. Is that the one where they all started eating each other? . 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. . People all over the world had reported hundreds of flying saucer sightings during the last two weeks of June 1947. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . Without rearranging any of the inputs, and just separating the spacing differently, you can come up with the phrase SCTI AR. On BSAA's Transatlantic services, moreover, it was operating at the ragged edge of its range when flying westbound. 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. Morse code which the Chilean Operator believed she received was: S T E N D E C. _ . 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. the disappearance of the plane - coupled with its final strange made with the control tower at Santiago. STENDEC is the same Morse as SCTI AR if you don't consider any spacing between characters. The radio operator, Dennis Harmer, also had a record of wartime as well as civilian service. 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. ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. / -. DNA clues reveal 55-year-old secrets behind crash of the Star Dust [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. In 1947 the official report into Stardusts disappearance had this Their curse was too much sky. In Britain, the news led to a hunt for surviving relatives. - . Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? Grand Duchess Anastasia (with her arm around her brother) is shown with the rest of the Russian royal family in 1913. Adding to the mystery, two Avro 691 Lancastrian aircraft had crashed during the previous seventeen months. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images. However, while the aircraft was unpressurized, its crew had been supplied with oxygen. Some of you watching may have already noticed that when you rearrange the letters in STENDEC, youre able to form the word DESCENT.
