The misunderstanding of their actual location reminds me of Uruguayan Flight 571, the subject of the book and movie Alive! A FINAL WORDHorizon regrets that - due to the sheer volume of correspondence Blast From the Past: The North Texas Skeptic, May 1999, Republican Senator Claims 'The Left' Will Start a Civil War Unless Federal Highway System Abolished, A Christian Health Nonprofit Saddled Thousands With Debt as It Built a Family Empire Including a Pot Farm, a Bank and an Airline, Popular Instagram Photographer Revealed as AI Fraud, Cutting IRS Funding Is a Gift to Americas Wealthiest Tax Evaders, Record 6,542 Guns Intercepted at US Airport Security in 22, Interview With Oklahoma State Sen. Nathan Dahm, US: Russia Has Committed Crimes Against Humanity in Ukraine, Joel Cummins Umphreys McGee Keyboard Rig - January 2023 [VIDEO], Oklahoma Judge Transfers Lesbian Moms Parental Rights to Her Sons Sperm Donor. The official 1947 report into Stardusts disappearance highlighted a number of possibilities as to what likely happened to the ill-fated flight, with multiple factors potentially playing a role in its demise. 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. course. Christie could have made something of this, but the passengers were quite unwilling and unwitting victims. The unit had to finish quickly. problem, here is a website which translates English into Morse code. Iris Evans, who had previously served in the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") as a chief petty officer, was the flight attendant. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code 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. It also seems clear that the message was not anticipating a crash, 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. Many people wrote pointing out that STENDEC is an anagram of descent. / -. The searchers discovered one propeller, its tips scarred and bent backward, indicating that the prop had been revolving when the Lancastrian plowed into the Tupungato glacier. The Avro Lancastrian began its life as a British Lancaster bomber in World War II. . Recent Pages by Shiplord Kirel (Shiplord Kirel: Fan of Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie): This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. 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. On BSAA's Transatlantic services, moreover, it was operating at the ragged edge of its range when flying westbound. ATLANTA (AP) The woman flying out of Philadelphias airport last year remembered to pack snacks, prescription medicine and a cellphone in her handbag. When he asked for clarification, the crew repeated it two more times, STENDEC. 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. 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. The most likely reality is that sending STENDEC was a mistake of some sort by Star Dusts radio operator. STENDEC - Solved?! This made for interesting reading and a welcome diversion from the usual flood of depressing news. It's reported as looking luminous and spherical, and can vary in diameter - from pea-sized to several metres long. Another explanation, advanced at the time of the disappearance, 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. - / . STENDEC - Solved?! This gives us the very 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. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images. From this time 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. All rights reserved. Really neat, I hadn't heard of this before. "Santiago tower even navigator doesnt exactly know" In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. USGS. I was a radio operator aboard an R.A.N. Its fate became one of the most puzzling aviation mysteries of its time. Furthermore, why would they put ATTENTION at the end of the transmission instead of the beginning? There are theories that STENDEC was an abbreviation or acronym of a much larger phrase, and when you break it down you can imagine a whole host of sentences could be constructed using these letters. Dear NOVA, I am a radio amateur who actively uses the Morse Code. 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. The last word in Star Dust's final Morse code transmission to Santiago airport, "STENDEC", was received by the airport control tower four minutes before its planned landing and repeated twice; it has never been satisfactorily explained. They had nothing to do with the crash, other than being present. 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. 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. 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. full message sent at 17.41 hrs was as follows: Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. At 17.41 a Chilean Air Force Morse operator in Santiago picked up a message: ETA [estimated time of arrival] Santiago 17.45 hrs. Morse transmissions prior to picking up voice communication. The Foreign Office yesterday confirmed that after initially unsuccessful attempts, Argentinian scientists have found close family matches. 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. Jos Avery has been posting his impressive photos Twitter continues to crumble bit by bit. It has to be this one in my opinion. Seems very unlikely. 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). / -.. / . 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? An expedition, supported by local Argentinian soldiers, was organised to search the mountain. 56K views 8 months ago #Disasters #History For over 50 years the fate of Flight CS-59 remained a mystery. Sometimes These Enigmas Never Decipher. - - . [12], A report by an amateur radio operator who claimed to have received a faint SOS signal from Star Dust initially raised hopes that there might have been survivors,[11] but all subsequent attempts over the years to find the vanished aircraft failed. Moreover, operators at the time only referred to aircraft by their registration code, which in Star Dusts case was G-AGWH., Acronym Theory If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the Dennis Harmer at 17:41 on 2nd August 1947. . code. The flight was conducted in zero-visibility conditions, so its unlikely the crew had any idea their plane was about to impact a mountainside. [5] The passengers were one woman and five men of Palestinian, Swiss, German and British nationality. of the station they wish to contact. 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. This is a personal family mystery that got solved a few years ago, so nothing exciting that would have gotten media attention, haha. Voice That would leave just "END", sandwiched between a signal attracting and had the same word repeated by the aircraft twice in succession. 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 site had been difficult to reach. SAR [11] The head of BSAA, Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, personally directed an unsuccessful five-day search. Anagram Theory But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. The Lancastrian's vanishing act happened at a time of considerable political turmoil in South America. to say on the subject:The 17.41 signal was received by Santiago only 4 minutes before Four letter ICAO codes for airports had Other explanations for the appearance case G-AGWH) rather than the romantic names airlines gave them. this method of communication. 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! The unit had to finish quickly. How police solved the mystery of a VHS tape depicting sexual assault. After an exhausting search, no trace of the aircraft was found. / - (Descent) 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. up sign. the ETA. Checklin never married and his immediate family is now dead, so she and her brothers must decide whether to bring the body back to Britain. Just before the plane disappeared, it Miracle in the Andes is an excellent book by the way. STENDECANAGRAMS UFO magazine. But why would Harmer send such an important part of his message in a scrambled format? enigmatic radio message was meant to mean. [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. Their curse was too much sky. The investigators concluded that the aircraft had not stalled. Over the next 2 years more debris and remains will be found. Perhaps the most plausible explanations we have heard are firmly 1947 an British South American Airways aircraft named Star Dust disappeared, it's last message was simply "STENDEC". Some things can be said with some degree of certainty. The investigators concluded that the aircraft had not stalled. 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. [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". Mystery solved. 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. CONCLUSION As mentioned previously, the standard morse code for a distress signal is SOS, which is much easier and quicker to communicate than STENDEC. Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. / -.-. much harder in Morse code.-.. / . STENDEC. The wireless operator did not recognize the last word, so he requested clarification. destroyer escort during the 70's.We were morse code trained. As for the Avro Tudor, its safety record was deplorable even at the time. 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. 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. 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. 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. In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error. Hence we have: Banksters, Peasants, and Kim Jong Un's Grandpa: A Parable for Our Times. Furthermore, aircraft were usually referred to by their registration, which in Stardusts case was G-AGWH, rather than the more romantic monikers the airline had given them. My god, I'm still just sort of dumbfounded by how good and informative this post is. A few days after Christmas in 2015, a woman in Sydney's south-west was contacted by police with shocking news. Sign in to continue reading. For over fifty years the disappearance ranked as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the aviation world, and a lively and inventive mythology grew up around the incident. In January 2000, they located the site and began recovering debris. 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. reception of the signal was loud and clear but that it was given method of signalling a late arrival amongst RAF radio operators.. / - / .- / .-.. / .- / - / . [19][20] This word has not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation. 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 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. 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. You can post your own LGF Pages simply by registering a free account with us. The Stardust incident involved British South American Airways G-AGWH. 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. Its civil certificate of airworthiness (CofA) number 7282 was issued on 1 January 1946. To put it simply, Cook chose the worst route possible in consideration of the conditions, which more than likely played a key role in the planes disappearance. But what was Jon Stewart asks when we will have enough guns -- watch to the end to watch him absolutely stick the landing. - . clear that STENDEC is not what the message was meant to say. It was underpowered, unstable in yaw on the ground (pilots of the Tudor got used to feeding in power at different levels from each engine on takeoff to prevent the beast from departing uncontrollably off the side of the runway), unpleasant to handle in the air, prone to leaks of all kinds, and an ergonomic and maintenance nightmare. 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". [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). Solve the Mystery of STENDEC Readers' Theories Set #1 Posted January 31, 2001 next set. Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. radio operator and/or receiver in Santiago, and playfulness on behalf 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. 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. / -.. / . Furthermore, Yet one mystery remains:. Blast From the Past: The North Texas Skeptic, May 1999, Republican Senator Claims 'The Left' Will Start a Civil War Unless Federal Highway System Abolished, A Christian Health Nonprofit Saddled Thousands With Debt as It Built a Family Empire Including a Pot Farm, a Bank and an Airline, Popular Instagram Photographer Revealed as AI Fraud, Cutting IRS Funding Is a Gift to Americas Wealthiest Tax Evaders, Record 6,542 Guns Intercepted at US Airport Security in 22, Interview With Oklahoma State Sen. Nathan Dahm, US: Russia Has Committed Crimes Against Humanity in Ukraine, Joel Cummins Umphreys McGee Keyboard Rig - January 2023 [VIDEO], Oklahoma Judge Transfers Lesbian Moms Parental Rights to Her Sons Sperm Donor. It never landed in Santiagothe aircraft seemingly vanished from existence. [6], A recovered propeller showed that the engine had been running at near-cruising speed at the time of the impact. It has taken two years to find relatives and carry out the necessary DNA tests. 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. Improperly loaded, it crashed on landing, killing 80 of the people on board -- at the time, the worst air disaster in world history. 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. Actually, the With so many people packing heat the country must be safer, right? Conspiracy Theory Watch: Don't Drink the Kool Aid. the hastily sent morse message gives us : We will never 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. Imaginative souls speculated that aliens had snatched the large Lancastrian along with its passengers and crew. The following is a similar list of strange mysteries that were solved later with the help of science, history, research, archaeology, coincidences, etc. begun to be used four months earlier in April 1947 and the four-letter code Therefore a standard signoff would be sent as the The radio operator meant to say Stardust. 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. That is the official ruling of an Oklahoma court. - / . Neither men were taken to the jail. The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . 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.