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Any ideas guys? Probably the solution lies in morse code rather than a textual solution. Anjouli 09:28, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Anjouli's theory
stendec in morse is ... / - / . / -. / -.. / . / -.-
Assume there was a bit of drop out and it was really ... / - / .- / .-. / -.. / . / -.- which is stardec, a known morse abreviation for "starting descent".
Of course that does not explain why it was supposedly repeated three times. Anjouli
Despite intensive speculation, few plausible explanations of the word "STENDEC" have emerged. In fact the word does not correspond to any known telegraphic code or 'telegraphese' shorthand in use either at the time or now, and experts at the official enquiry failed to make any sense of it. Its meaning still remains a mystery to this day.
The 'dit-dah' sequence within "STENDEC" is most likely correct. The Santiago Operator said that he queried it twice, and he described the receiving conditions as 'clear', making it unlikely that dit-dah confusions or omissions occurred. Erroneous lengthening or shortening of pauses within and between letters is more likely than insertion of false extra 'dits' or 'dahs'.
Lycophron's Theory
My theory is that people ought to at least give a passing attempt at looking something up, rather than endlessly speculating about it. Acronym Finder has had an entry on STENDEC for years:
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym=stendec&Find=find&string=exact
"Severe Turbulence Encountered Now Descending Emergency Crash-Landing (WWII Morse code)"
A contributor to the PBS/Nova site referenced at the bottom of the article elaborates on the meaning and usage (the two sources are independent of each other, by the way):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/sten_010208.html
And the online version of the Guardian comes up with the same definition:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,787181,00.html
At the very least, the sentence in the original article about how STENDEC corresponds to no known telegraph code should be scrapped (it assets a negative in any event).
Lycophron
ChrisRed
1) I am not able to find a source I consider reliable enough to support my meaning of STENDEC and have deleted my paragraph. 2) One should avoid posting pet theories on Wikipedia, so I will retract mine. 3) In attempting to establish a negative ("'STENDEC' is totally meaningless"), which is a problematic enterprise to begin with, you make two assertions which, if seemingly plausible, are still conjectural. It is entirely possible, if unlikely, for a board of inquiry to miss something. Also, a vocubulary of acronyms may contain complex oddities with no requirement that all possible eventualities be dealt with (e.g., a striking feature of medical vocabularies is how many holes they have -- but such things grow organically, on an "as needed" basis). 4) Serves me right for posting to Wikipedia in the first place. ;)
Lycophron
ChrisRed
Right on all points (including the first). The mystery has been solved, as you point out, and the STENDEC issue is moot, anyway. Cheers.
Lycophron
Favorite theory
After reading through the large number of reader's theories on PBS's Nova website, I see that the most common was mentioned four times: STENDEC = Starting En-Route Descent. One of the contributors insisted that it was a standard BRITISH morse-code call from that period. -- Farry 18:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Nonetheless, someone should add some morse code solutions to STENDEC, since they are the most probable solutions to the STENDEC mystery. As of this post, the only solutions recorded are alphabet based ones. Bradkoch2007 04:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Chris Red - I write as ex-aircrew who served with the Royal Air Force as an Air Electronics Officer. I take issue with your comment "...We are talking about British ex-RAF flight-crew in the the 1940's after all..." The phonetic alphabet you refer to was used by the British Army signallers, Royal Navy when using RT and spelling as in "I spell ..." and the Royal Air Force - my uncle was a telegraphist in the RN during WWII and he taught me Morse Code when I was about 10 not only to send and receive using a morse key, but to read and send it using a lamp. The current phonetic alphabet was introduced to standardise the spelling of words across the whole of NATO and eventually almost the rest of the world uses it.
Hypoxia - the lack of oxygen can affect the brain at altitudes as low as about 2000 metres or about 7000 feet and at 15000 feet - the altitude that Star Dust is assumed to have impacted with Tupungatu hypoxia is a very distinct possibility. More so if and this is conjecture the supply of oxygen to the wireless operator - remember they were using wireless telegraphy aka morse, was restricted, perhaps because he had taken off his oxygen mask, because they were "about to land." I was taught and this was emphasised by my military training not to insert letters into words or words in to sentences UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY HEARD IT. You requested a repetition of the whole or part of the message "Say again all after ... / all before ..." Therefore I do believe the operator at Santiago DID hear the word STENDEC, and that he heard it twice more. So given that conditions were good for radio reception at Santiago and assuming the same at the aircraft, the possibility is that the local geography around Tupungatu was causing diffraction and refraction of the transmissions. Given that the aircraft was supposedly on approach it would be slowing to about 120 MPH - 2 miles a minute or about 176 feet (about 54 metres) per second and as radio waves travel at 300,000,000 metres per second it is a possibility that the surrounding peaks were causing some local affect that neither the operator at Santiago or on board the aircraft were aware of.
I do agree that a probable meaning was STR DE CS59 but bouncing about, reflections etc caused the message to be misunderstood. Incidentally I have never in all my years flying ever heard the word STENDEC it is not in any manual for wireless operators, and in the event of any life threatening emergency the signal "SOS SOS SOS DE ..." is sent in Morse and in voice it is "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY ..." the other term for a none life threatening emergency is "PAN PAN PAN ...," there is NO signal which would mean "We are about to crash!"
I suspect that at the last seconds the pilot and co-pilot realised something was wrong and applied emergency power to the engines put it in to a steep climb almost approaching a stall angle and impacted the glacier. If the aircraft had hit head on the wreckage would have telescoped. We may have to wait for more wreckage to appear to discover if indeed it was a head on or a "high speed belly flop," what ever happened as you and others point out, none of us were there, as a grounded aircrew (due to age) my heart goes out to the victims and the families of Star Dust and indeed any who fail to make a safe landing. RIP. Grounded Flier ( talk) 14:13, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia entry very nicely explains that "STENDEC" could have been a misheard message, "STR DEC". Apparently, the morse code sequence would be identical, except for the letter-break spacing being placed differently. It would mean "Starting Descent", a message in line with the rest of the information given in the radio traffic, and it could be repeated two times identically (ie, not a glitch in the transmission or a temporary blackout of the operator required). So, all in all, it appears to be a concise and valid explanation.
OTOH, I'm not enough of an expert in the field of airflight or morse. Would anybody more knowledgable want to investigate? (If there's a need for German/English translations, I'm happy to help.) -- Syzygy 08:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the STENDEC = STRDEC! Perhaps STR DEC would be an abbreviated code for Starting Descent. I'm an expert in sending and receiving morse code via radio. STENDEC and STRDEC are so similar, that they can easily be confused by any radio operator. Only a slight (1/10 to 1/5 of a second) difference in timing gap between E to N, and it changes to R. The morse fist or sending personality of the airborne operator or the ability of the receiving operator to recognize and interpret their fist is always an issue when communicating by morse code via straight key. Top this off with the fact that sending morse with an old straight key on an old aircraft in turbulence might change the cadence easily. Sometimes the morse key was strapped to the leg of the pilot or co-pilot. Expeditionradio 13:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I've rewritten the section on STENDEC to remove the detailled and apparently quite pointless discussions about acronyms or misreads. Please, check it out and tell me what you think! -- Syzygy ( talk) 12:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
It has been more than 10 years... Can anyone give a reference if "STR" for "start" and "DEC" for "descend" were used, especially in Argentina? 178.215.105.1 ( talk) 12:11, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Has anyone else noticed that "STENDEC" is an anagram of "DESCENT"? I'm just putting it out there.
John D. Coughlan
An interesting coincidence, but nothing more. It's not really possible to *accidentally* scramble a word around in Morse. Admiral Rupert 17:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
- The message was sent two times, so maybe the pilot was trying to say DESCENT DESCENT? He started keying really rapidly and somehow managed to miss the first few letters and mixed them up.. twice. STEN_DECSTEN_DEC.. I don't think so, because it's not plausible to make the same error twice, or even put a T before E and N. But hey, just a thought. I think ChrisRed's theory is the most convincing one. HeadCheese 11:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
The rest of the English-speaking world accepts that Americans spell some words differently to the rest of us. It doesn't really matter, we can still understand you, and although the result can often appear 'juvenile' to us, we don't let it get on our nerves. BUT...when an American comes along and CORRECTS standard English spelling into American spelling (as though it is us who can't spell) then that is a different thing altogether. Sorry, but the language is not called 'American'. This was a British aircraft, with no Americans on board, which was travelling with two 'L's until it crashed into a lump of Argentina. We don't need English lessons from you... ChrisRed 07:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I hate to bring this up given that a fellow countryman (the CEO of BSAA) was at the root of the problem, but there is something disturbingly non- NPOV about the article's glowing endorsement of the Star Dust crew:
This does not gibe with http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/s2.cfm?id=367622002
Would you fly on a 747 if you knew that every flight was going to claim a passenger?
The article continues,
The problem with the Wikipedia article is its implication that with such a qualified crew the passengers were in good hands. What the statistics show is that those very qualifications had put BSAA passengers at 50 times the risk of BOAC passengers and far more compared to BEA passengers. -- Vaughan Pratt 19:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't it say (airplane) to stay with the US dialect that is used around Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.32.253.47 ( talk) 19:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
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Why have the names of the aircrew been deleted from the article? It used to list the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, radio op and 'stargirl' (stewardess) along with their wartime decorations. As this was an accident (i.e. the crew didn't 'murder' their passengers) surely they deserve to be listed and remembered as victims of the tragedy too? 86.148.252.237 ( talk) 21:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I just finished a major rewrite of this article. Hopefully it's better organized now, and with better inline sourcing. I'm planning to try getting it recognized as a "Good Article". Please note that it's in British English (that's how it was before my rewrite, and it's only right considering that the topic is definitely British) — but since I'm an American/Canadian, it's quite possible that I slipped up in spots, so any Brit who sees a spelling or turn of phrase from the wrong side of the pond is welcome to jump in and fix it. Thanks. Richwales ( talk · contribs) 05:05, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
I've added some more information, based on Star Dust Falling. I'd be grateful if people could have another look at the article now and offer any comments. Once again, I would like to get this article up to GA quality, so any constructive suggestions are welcome. Richwales ( talk · contribs) 05:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
This article is about an air accident. The aircraft is only notable because of its involvement in the crash. Are there any objections to renaming the article BSAA Star Dust crash (i.e. same as infobox), along the line of almost every other air accident article? This would also solve the spelling dispute. -- Giuliopp ( talk) 18:10, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
The following was added to the end of the article by an IP editor: On page 75 of "Can anyone see Bermuda" written by Archie Jackson ( ISBN 0-9515598-5-0) he records, as a Captain for BSAA, the efforts he took part in to find the wreckage / survivors. He comments "(Stardust)...was being flown by a Captain on his first command". "We had all been warned not to enter cloud over the mountains as the turbulence and icing posed too great a threat". This material can't simply be tacked onto the end of the article in its current form, but it may very likely be useful with some augmentation and cleanup. I'm going to try to find a copy of the book. — Rich wales 16:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
using the term "even alien abduction" implies that alien abduction is implausible or ridiculous, this violates WP:NPOV Zer0n888 ( talk) 04:20, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
(I passed my Morse test for the Australian Ham licence in 1961, callsign VK2AUA for a few years thereafter.) By far the most plausible solution I've seen is the one posted by Brian (second message) at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/sten_010202.html, which he suggested was ETA SANTIAGO 1745 ST ENDAR with ST meaning "Standard Time" and AR meaning End Communication. However it was missing the following four quite relevant corroborative details that I think tighten up his argument considerably.
1. Harmer's prior Andean experience. According to the official report at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/sten_report3.html Harmer had had his P.M.G. (Post Master General, i.e. civilian) licence for only nine months, but had the benefit of six previous trans-Andean crossings so he was not unfamiliar with the routine in Santiago. Miscommunications with Chilean operators on previous occasions may have prompted him to creatively vary his routine by way of clarification (item 3).
2. EC = + = AR. The End Communication "procode" or logging abbreviation is + ("cross") = •▬•▬• . It is one of seven punctuation and procode codes, out of 24 listed in the 1986 ARRL Handbook, that are needed to satisfy FCC testing requirements. It is formed by running together either AR = •▬ / •▬• or EC = • / ▬•▬• , is sometimes written AR with a bar over it, and is sometimes transmitted as AR or EC instead of + (two letters instead of one procode). An operator accustomed to the AR form but not to + or EC might hear + as EC, or Harmer might have sent EC.
3. Why both END and +? The same failure by the Chilean operator to recognize EC as a terminator on this occasion may have happened to Harmer on some of his previous flights into Santiago (see 1 above), possibly even with the same operator, prompting him to add END creatively as clarifying backup this time.
4. ST = CLT != CLST. See http://www.horaoficial.cl/cambio.htm for a table of official Chilean time since 1900, and http://www.statoids.com/tcl.html for historical information on names of Chilean time zones. There are two important takeaways here.
So ST would make no sense in Chile in August 1947 for three reasons:
Conclusion Harmer transmitted the Star Dust's ETA and nothing else, in the format "ETASANTIAGO1745STEND+", with unknown spacing (we don't know which spaces he provided and which were interpolated by the receiving operator). Harmer likely intended ST to mean Standard Time, which the operator failed to recognize as qualifying the time (detail 4). Harmer may have spaced + as any of +, AR, or EC, which the Chilean read as EC but failed to recognize as a terminator because he'd only been taught + and/or AR (detail 2). Harmer may well have run into that problem on some of his six previous trans-Andean crossings (detail 1) and creatively added END by way of clarification (detail 3). When asked (twice) to say again, Harmer did so exactly the same way each time, and each time it sounded exactly the same to the Chilean operator. -- Vaughan Pratt 17:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
That looks suspiciously like the solution. The message was sent three times in the same form, with clear reception, so it was deliberate and intended to be easily understood. So the solution must be staring everyone in the face. The END jumps right out at you, so you just have to account for ST and EC. ST follows 1745, so it probably does mean Standard Time. Chile was indeed on year-round Standard Time in 1947. The one complication, the October 1946 decree that put Santiago one hour ahead to save energy usage, was rescinded in May 1947, three months before the accident. The snag is that Standard Time in Chile is known as Chilean Time and abbreviated to CLT, so Harmer should have sent CLT. A British operator might have understood '1745 ST', but the Chilean operator evidently didn't. END means 'end', and if the normal concluding + sign is a run-together EC (which I didn't know), that explains that as well. Using 'end' and '+' together could simply be an idiosyncrasy of Harmer's, intended to avoid ambiguity but in this case actually causing it. It was a very minor radio mix-up which only looked important because of the crash. -Hugo Barnacle 87.114.104.125 ( talk) 13:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
No, quite. It can't go in, absent reputable publication. So the answer -- which it probably is -- may remain hidden, here on the Talk page, just as Star Dust herself remained hidden in the glacier, for quite some time. -Hugo 84.93.53.199 ( talk) 19:14, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
I did a little rewrite of the third par of the intro because it was basically saying the same thing twice -- that no-one knows what STENDEC meant. I also removed the words "repeated twice" because they are incorrect (see below). User:Windroff restored the words "repeated twice" to my amendment, and I reverted him. Oh wow, he reverted me again and left an edit summary saying "EVERYTHING in the intro is explained in the article; the "mistery" relies in the fact that an apparent mistake was repeated 3 times, so it is notable enough to b..." So I have reverted him, and asked him to come to this talk page.
My worry is with the restoration of "repeated twice". As the text of the article states -- "At 5.41 PM. "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC" was the last of a series of Morse code messages transmitted by Star Dust ".
Exactly, it was the very last message, i.e. the final one. It can not have been repeated twice, unless we show there were two messages received after 5.41pm..
English words have meaning, and last means last, that nothing succeeds it. Hence my removal from the lead again of "repeated twice".
Regarding Windroff"s edit summary, it is POV and breaches WP:V to say the use of the word STENDEC three times was an "apparent mistake". Moriori ( talk) 02:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
At 5.41 PM. "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC" was the last of a series of Morse code messages transmitted by Star Dust during its flight, reporting its position, altitude, and a revised estimated time of arrival in Santiago of 5.45 PM. The Chilean Air Force radio operator at Santiago airport described the message as coming in "loud and clear", adding only that it had been given out very quickly. As he did not recognize the last word of this message, he requested clarification about the word from the aircraft. The message "STENDEC" was repeated by the aircraft twice in succession before contact was lost. This word has still not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation—including suggestions (made before the wreckage was finally discovered) that the aircraft and those aboard might have been the victims of a UFO encounter.
ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC" was the last of a series of Morse code messages transmitted by Star Dust during its flight, reporting its position, altitude, and a revised estimated time of arrival in Santiago of 5.45 PM
The Solution
So what happened? When solving such a problem, a person should first assume that a mistake had been made receiving the message. If it had been sent incorrectly, it would be more difficult to reconstruct. One ought always do the easier thing first. In this case, it means taking another look at the Morse message as it was received. After all, it had been transmitted three times before the plane vanished. An error in decoding seems entirely reasonable.
Once again, STENDEC reads / . . . / - / . / - . / - . . / . / - . - ./. The actual message probably ended with / - - . /. The wireless operator in Santiago must have assumed that the last letter was C, and added a dot after the first dash: / - . - . /. In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error. The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . . . / - /. The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . . . - /. If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . . . - / . - / . - . . / . - - . /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. 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. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. Their curse was too much sky.
Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place—ALP—a perfect match in Morse. If the wireless operator in Santiago had read the code correctly, it may have made no difference. The accident occurred immediately after the message, STENDEC, or more correctly, VALP, was sent a third time. The airports at Santiago and Valparaiso may have lacked radar in 1947, so they could not have spotted a lost or stray aircraft, even if air-traffic controllers had been searching for one, even if they had all the time in the world.
The message “ETA Santiago 17.45 hrs. VALP” still seems confusing. The crew of the “Stardust” may have wanted to alert Santiago that it planned to land elsewhere, or the Morse operator at Santiago simply assumed that ETA referred to Santiago, since the Chilean capital had been its scheduled destination. The final message presumably read: “ETA 17.45 VALP.” The “Stardust” may have been trying to reach Valparaiso, not Santiago at all. A bit more information helps. The Lancastrian carried 1,380 gallons of fuel, providing about six hours and thirty minutes of flying time. The 632 nautical mile flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago took approximately three hours and forty-five minutes. By adhering to the flight plan and arriving over Mendoza at 18,000 feet, the distance of 526 nautical miles between Buenos Aires and Mendoza should have taken three hours and twelve minutes. The remaining 106 miles from Mendoza to Santiago at 26,000 feet would have added thirty-three minutes. The “Stardust” left Buenos Aires at 13.46 and reported as follows:
15.07 hrs.33°55’ S.62°33’ W.Height10,000feet, course 286°, speed196knots,ETASantiago17.30 hrs.
16.00 hrs.33°25’ S.65°30’ W.Height10,000feet, course 282°, speed196knots,ETASantiago17.30 hrs.
17.00 hrs.32°50’ S.68°30’ W.Height20,000feet,as- cending to24,000feet,speed194knots,ETASanti- ago 17.43 hrs.
17.33 hrs. ETA Santiago 17.45 hrs.
17.41 hrs.A signal was sent out by the aircraft that read: ETA (Santiago) 17.45 hrs. STENDEC
According to the flight plan, the aircraft was to fly at 168.53 nautical miles per hour, or 2.8 nautical miles per minute. The “Stardust” should have been in the air for 225 minutes (180 + 45 [12 + 33]=225). It departed from Buenos Aires at 13.46, and sent the mysterious message at 17.41, for an anticipated total flight time of 239 minutes (17.41-13.46=235 + 4=239 minutes). Navigator Harmer calculated that “Stardust” would be fourteen minutes late (239-225=14). But after rising above the clouds near Mendoza, the crew lost their bearings. The message at 17.33 did not include latitude and longitude. Reports at 16.00 and 17.00 hours indicated that the plane had traveled 1.25 degrees north during the past hour. Before it crashed at Mount Tupungato (33.20 S. 69.50 W.), forty-some minutes later, the “Stardust” had veered south from Mendoza (32.50 S. 68.45 W.). But where was it? These coordinates indicated that the crew had not decided at the last minute to fly the safer route to avoid the bad weather. It ended up too far from San Juan (31.40 S. 68.35 W.) to have chose this option. It is certain, however, that the “Stardust” was lost, and the crew thought the plane nearer Valparaiso than Santiago. The crew realized that it was lost and, by then, the aircraft may virtually have exhausted its fuel bucking the jet stream. This new interpretation explains a lesser mystery—why the crew failed to extend the landing gear when they thought the “Stardust” was within four minutes of touchdown. After all, at 17.41 the “Stardust” had announced its arrival at 17.45.
But the crew did not know where, exactly, they were. They would have lowered the landing gear when they saw the airport, but the pilot could not see the airport, or even the mountain. All they could do was frantically try to establish radio contact VALP. . . VALP. . .VALP.
Scherer from http://www.ntskeptics.org — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.101.23.135 ( talk) 18:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
This is a very very stupid rule, do not understand? All source is important! Just to mention a reliable source! The Wikipedia is often very stupid for this stupid rules! Who made these rules is ignorant and it is also those who follow them! Regards! Mike — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
94.167.219.119 (
talk) 22:47, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
In reference to the remark that the wireless operator at Santiago added a dot after the first dash is an insult to the integrity of the wireless operator. No wireless operator then or now adds anything to a message that they receive - they do not complete someone else's messages for them. They write down precisely what they hear whether it is a plain language or an encoded transmission. It is for others to decipher the message, most operators in my experience have no time to read the message - they write it down and pass it on. The operator at Santiago heard the word STENDEC and as it made no sense because he had never heard it before or since, he requested a repetition. No-one on here was present at the wireless station, no-one was present on the aircraft and therefore none of us know precisely what happened. I suspect but again it is an opinion that refraction of the radio wave occurred as it reflected off nearby mountains but that is only speculation. Me - well I served for 14 years as an Air Electronics Officer in the Royal Air Force, hold a BSc (First Class Honours) in Electronics and a PhD, I also hold my own Class A Transmission Licence and build all my own equipment. The wireless operator in a Lancastrian sat at his bench behind the Navigator who sat in his own little "cubby hole" immediately behind the pilot. The Flight Engineer sat on a jump seat beside the pilot. As a result of the Titanic disaster the International signal for a life threatening emergency was changed to SOS from CQD - it is quicker and easier to send. STENDEC would have taken a lot longer to send. SOS was and still is instantly recognisable to every wireless operator all over the world. STENDEC is unknown except to those who would have us believe it meant something. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
90.244.58.105 (
talk) 17:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
"::So the 'STENDEC' part of the message was perhaps misheard, due to atmospherics or similar, or not from Star Dust at all but from someone else, or may even have been an abbreviation known to ex-RAF Wireless Operators but not to the Chilean radio operator. This last one is unlikely however as no-one has come forward since with any knowledge of it." I am sorry but despite many exhaustive hours talking to the (now sadly), very rapidly dwindling number of ex-Royal Air Force wireless operators of the era that this discussion refers to, and a search of all the AP's - Air Publications, instructions to Wireless Operators published by the Air Ministry / Royal Air Force, there is no-one who knows, and no reference anywhere to the word "stendec," so your comment is without any foundation whatsoever. Every wireless operator of the 1940's when asked if they knew what "stendec" meant said they had never heard of it. Asked if it meant "We are about to crash" the response was usually one of "Well if you are about to crash either you will have sent an SOS and the key would be screwed down on constant transmission to aid any search and rescue, or it would have happened so fast that there would be no time to send anything not even a very rude word starting with "S" and ending with "T". I also do not accept that the Wireless Operator at Santiago put letters into a message, made it up or any other silly comment. He wrote down exactly what he heard and would have left gaps if he felt any letter was missing then asked for a repetition. I suspect that the wireless operator believing that they were about to land had removed his oxygen mask and was unknown to himself affected by hypoxia - the aircraft was at an altitude of about 15000 feet and hypoxia is a real and present danger above about 7000 feet. The fact is that no one was at Santiago, none of us were on board the aircraft, and therefore none of us know what happened. Everything is therefore conjecture. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
88.107.80.182 (
talk) 18:33, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
178.215.105.1 ( talk) 21:37, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
I manually checked if VALP (codename for Valparaiso's aeroport) and STENDEC are any similar in Morse.
There is a BBC Horizon TV programme about this aircraft at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z2vhg/horizon-20002001-vanished-the-plane-that-disappeared currently available on BBC iPlayer, at least within the UK. This shows photos of Lancastrian G-AGWH with the name painted on its starboard side as 'STAR DUST' at 04:04 and another photo of the same aircraft with the name 'STARDUST' at 26:26 on its port side - presumably at different times. I suggest mentioning both versions of the name. GilesW ( talk) 20:33, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I have removed a paragraph from the STENDEC section because it was unencyclopedic. That one single paragraph contained all of the following awful phrases -- "One possibility is.....the message might have..... Santiago might have .....it is possible.....perhaps an emergency.....may be responsible.....may have misunderstood....." Moriori ( talk) 03:49, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
Well, I did cite this page: http://www.ntskeptics.org/2010/2010december/december2010.htm
However, in light of what MilborneOne said, specifically, that we do not need to describe every theory, I can understand. I suppose I took it personally which isn't appropriate anyway
At any rate, this was in fact my first attempt at a cited edit, so, thank you for the feedback Moriori and MilborneOne Phobos Anomaly ( talk) 14:03, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
Stendal was the site of the Nazi`s elite parachute unit. 86.143.212.15 ( talk) 16:55, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
that's fascinating. but... so what?
duncanrmi ( talk) 21:56, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Discussion closed as this is not the place to speculate or do original research.
MilborneOne (
talk) 14:53, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
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Comparison of hypothises if:
STENDEC: ... - . -. -.. . .. . STENDES: ... - . -. -.. . ... (should there be a sixth dot without a gap before the last one) STR DEC: ... - . .. / -.. . .. . (a gap and a dot between a line) :::VALP: ...- .- _ ..... (a double unbroken line instead a dot and line combo; the sixth dot from STENDEC is absent) In ITU Morse code, following words have such codes (courtesy the same translator found in referenced BBC's archived page): STENDEC: ... - . -. -.. . -.-. STR DEC: ... - .-. / -.. . -.-. :::VALP: ...- .- .-.. .--. ::VALPA: ...- .- .-.. .--. .-
178.215.105.1 ( talk) 14:26, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
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Under the STENDEC heading (not going into that barrel of monkeys) one of the paragraphs ends "However, this theory does not match with the rest of the message, which was reporting the flight's estimated arrival time.[citation needed]" I do not see how this sentence needs a citation. In the same section, just before it, the 9th source "STENDEC' – Stardust's final mysterious message". BBC. 2 November 2000. Archived from the original on 20 January 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2011." is cited with the transmission which clearly states ETA 17.45. So, where are we not getting factual confirmation that the arrival time was transmitted? SnarkyValkyrie ( talk) 19:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
The second para of Background contains this: "Star Dust carried six passengers and a crew of five on its final flight. 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. Cook had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC)." Reg Cook was the Captain, and Norm Cook was the First Officer ... who had been awarded the DSO and DFC: Reg or Norm? Prisoner of Zenda ( talk) 11:37, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
1947 BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust accident has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | ||||||||||
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Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the " On this day..." column on August 2, 2013, August 2, 2017, and August 2, 2022. |
This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
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Any ideas guys? Probably the solution lies in morse code rather than a textual solution. Anjouli 09:28, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Anjouli's theory
stendec in morse is ... / - / . / -. / -.. / . / -.-
Assume there was a bit of drop out and it was really ... / - / .- / .-. / -.. / . / -.- which is stardec, a known morse abreviation for "starting descent".
Of course that does not explain why it was supposedly repeated three times. Anjouli
Despite intensive speculation, few plausible explanations of the word "STENDEC" have emerged. In fact the word does not correspond to any known telegraphic code or 'telegraphese' shorthand in use either at the time or now, and experts at the official enquiry failed to make any sense of it. Its meaning still remains a mystery to this day.
The 'dit-dah' sequence within "STENDEC" is most likely correct. The Santiago Operator said that he queried it twice, and he described the receiving conditions as 'clear', making it unlikely that dit-dah confusions or omissions occurred. Erroneous lengthening or shortening of pauses within and between letters is more likely than insertion of false extra 'dits' or 'dahs'.
Lycophron's Theory
My theory is that people ought to at least give a passing attempt at looking something up, rather than endlessly speculating about it. Acronym Finder has had an entry on STENDEC for years:
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym=stendec&Find=find&string=exact
"Severe Turbulence Encountered Now Descending Emergency Crash-Landing (WWII Morse code)"
A contributor to the PBS/Nova site referenced at the bottom of the article elaborates on the meaning and usage (the two sources are independent of each other, by the way):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/sten_010208.html
And the online version of the Guardian comes up with the same definition:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,787181,00.html
At the very least, the sentence in the original article about how STENDEC corresponds to no known telegraph code should be scrapped (it assets a negative in any event).
Lycophron
ChrisRed
1) I am not able to find a source I consider reliable enough to support my meaning of STENDEC and have deleted my paragraph. 2) One should avoid posting pet theories on Wikipedia, so I will retract mine. 3) In attempting to establish a negative ("'STENDEC' is totally meaningless"), which is a problematic enterprise to begin with, you make two assertions which, if seemingly plausible, are still conjectural. It is entirely possible, if unlikely, for a board of inquiry to miss something. Also, a vocubulary of acronyms may contain complex oddities with no requirement that all possible eventualities be dealt with (e.g., a striking feature of medical vocabularies is how many holes they have -- but such things grow organically, on an "as needed" basis). 4) Serves me right for posting to Wikipedia in the first place. ;)
Lycophron
ChrisRed
Right on all points (including the first). The mystery has been solved, as you point out, and the STENDEC issue is moot, anyway. Cheers.
Lycophron
Favorite theory
After reading through the large number of reader's theories on PBS's Nova website, I see that the most common was mentioned four times: STENDEC = Starting En-Route Descent. One of the contributors insisted that it was a standard BRITISH morse-code call from that period. -- Farry 18:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Nonetheless, someone should add some morse code solutions to STENDEC, since they are the most probable solutions to the STENDEC mystery. As of this post, the only solutions recorded are alphabet based ones. Bradkoch2007 04:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Chris Red - I write as ex-aircrew who served with the Royal Air Force as an Air Electronics Officer. I take issue with your comment "...We are talking about British ex-RAF flight-crew in the the 1940's after all..." The phonetic alphabet you refer to was used by the British Army signallers, Royal Navy when using RT and spelling as in "I spell ..." and the Royal Air Force - my uncle was a telegraphist in the RN during WWII and he taught me Morse Code when I was about 10 not only to send and receive using a morse key, but to read and send it using a lamp. The current phonetic alphabet was introduced to standardise the spelling of words across the whole of NATO and eventually almost the rest of the world uses it.
Hypoxia - the lack of oxygen can affect the brain at altitudes as low as about 2000 metres or about 7000 feet and at 15000 feet - the altitude that Star Dust is assumed to have impacted with Tupungatu hypoxia is a very distinct possibility. More so if and this is conjecture the supply of oxygen to the wireless operator - remember they were using wireless telegraphy aka morse, was restricted, perhaps because he had taken off his oxygen mask, because they were "about to land." I was taught and this was emphasised by my military training not to insert letters into words or words in to sentences UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY HEARD IT. You requested a repetition of the whole or part of the message "Say again all after ... / all before ..." Therefore I do believe the operator at Santiago DID hear the word STENDEC, and that he heard it twice more. So given that conditions were good for radio reception at Santiago and assuming the same at the aircraft, the possibility is that the local geography around Tupungatu was causing diffraction and refraction of the transmissions. Given that the aircraft was supposedly on approach it would be slowing to about 120 MPH - 2 miles a minute or about 176 feet (about 54 metres) per second and as radio waves travel at 300,000,000 metres per second it is a possibility that the surrounding peaks were causing some local affect that neither the operator at Santiago or on board the aircraft were aware of.
I do agree that a probable meaning was STR DE CS59 but bouncing about, reflections etc caused the message to be misunderstood. Incidentally I have never in all my years flying ever heard the word STENDEC it is not in any manual for wireless operators, and in the event of any life threatening emergency the signal "SOS SOS SOS DE ..." is sent in Morse and in voice it is "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY ..." the other term for a none life threatening emergency is "PAN PAN PAN ...," there is NO signal which would mean "We are about to crash!"
I suspect that at the last seconds the pilot and co-pilot realised something was wrong and applied emergency power to the engines put it in to a steep climb almost approaching a stall angle and impacted the glacier. If the aircraft had hit head on the wreckage would have telescoped. We may have to wait for more wreckage to appear to discover if indeed it was a head on or a "high speed belly flop," what ever happened as you and others point out, none of us were there, as a grounded aircrew (due to age) my heart goes out to the victims and the families of Star Dust and indeed any who fail to make a safe landing. RIP. Grounded Flier ( talk) 14:13, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia entry very nicely explains that "STENDEC" could have been a misheard message, "STR DEC". Apparently, the morse code sequence would be identical, except for the letter-break spacing being placed differently. It would mean "Starting Descent", a message in line with the rest of the information given in the radio traffic, and it could be repeated two times identically (ie, not a glitch in the transmission or a temporary blackout of the operator required). So, all in all, it appears to be a concise and valid explanation.
OTOH, I'm not enough of an expert in the field of airflight or morse. Would anybody more knowledgable want to investigate? (If there's a need for German/English translations, I'm happy to help.) -- Syzygy 08:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the STENDEC = STRDEC! Perhaps STR DEC would be an abbreviated code for Starting Descent. I'm an expert in sending and receiving morse code via radio. STENDEC and STRDEC are so similar, that they can easily be confused by any radio operator. Only a slight (1/10 to 1/5 of a second) difference in timing gap between E to N, and it changes to R. The morse fist or sending personality of the airborne operator or the ability of the receiving operator to recognize and interpret their fist is always an issue when communicating by morse code via straight key. Top this off with the fact that sending morse with an old straight key on an old aircraft in turbulence might change the cadence easily. Sometimes the morse key was strapped to the leg of the pilot or co-pilot. Expeditionradio 13:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I've rewritten the section on STENDEC to remove the detailled and apparently quite pointless discussions about acronyms or misreads. Please, check it out and tell me what you think! -- Syzygy ( talk) 12:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
It has been more than 10 years... Can anyone give a reference if "STR" for "start" and "DEC" for "descend" were used, especially in Argentina? 178.215.105.1 ( talk) 12:11, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Has anyone else noticed that "STENDEC" is an anagram of "DESCENT"? I'm just putting it out there.
John D. Coughlan
An interesting coincidence, but nothing more. It's not really possible to *accidentally* scramble a word around in Morse. Admiral Rupert 17:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
- The message was sent two times, so maybe the pilot was trying to say DESCENT DESCENT? He started keying really rapidly and somehow managed to miss the first few letters and mixed them up.. twice. STEN_DECSTEN_DEC.. I don't think so, because it's not plausible to make the same error twice, or even put a T before E and N. But hey, just a thought. I think ChrisRed's theory is the most convincing one. HeadCheese 11:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
The rest of the English-speaking world accepts that Americans spell some words differently to the rest of us. It doesn't really matter, we can still understand you, and although the result can often appear 'juvenile' to us, we don't let it get on our nerves. BUT...when an American comes along and CORRECTS standard English spelling into American spelling (as though it is us who can't spell) then that is a different thing altogether. Sorry, but the language is not called 'American'. This was a British aircraft, with no Americans on board, which was travelling with two 'L's until it crashed into a lump of Argentina. We don't need English lessons from you... ChrisRed 07:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I hate to bring this up given that a fellow countryman (the CEO of BSAA) was at the root of the problem, but there is something disturbingly non- NPOV about the article's glowing endorsement of the Star Dust crew:
This does not gibe with http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/s2.cfm?id=367622002
Would you fly on a 747 if you knew that every flight was going to claim a passenger?
The article continues,
The problem with the Wikipedia article is its implication that with such a qualified crew the passengers were in good hands. What the statistics show is that those very qualifications had put BSAA passengers at 50 times the risk of BOAC passengers and far more compared to BEA passengers. -- Vaughan Pratt 19:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't it say (airplane) to stay with the US dialect that is used around Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.32.253.47 ( talk) 19:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
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Why have the names of the aircrew been deleted from the article? It used to list the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, radio op and 'stargirl' (stewardess) along with their wartime decorations. As this was an accident (i.e. the crew didn't 'murder' their passengers) surely they deserve to be listed and remembered as victims of the tragedy too? 86.148.252.237 ( talk) 21:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I just finished a major rewrite of this article. Hopefully it's better organized now, and with better inline sourcing. I'm planning to try getting it recognized as a "Good Article". Please note that it's in British English (that's how it was before my rewrite, and it's only right considering that the topic is definitely British) — but since I'm an American/Canadian, it's quite possible that I slipped up in spots, so any Brit who sees a spelling or turn of phrase from the wrong side of the pond is welcome to jump in and fix it. Thanks. Richwales ( talk · contribs) 05:05, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
I've added some more information, based on Star Dust Falling. I'd be grateful if people could have another look at the article now and offer any comments. Once again, I would like to get this article up to GA quality, so any constructive suggestions are welcome. Richwales ( talk · contribs) 05:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
This article is about an air accident. The aircraft is only notable because of its involvement in the crash. Are there any objections to renaming the article BSAA Star Dust crash (i.e. same as infobox), along the line of almost every other air accident article? This would also solve the spelling dispute. -- Giuliopp ( talk) 18:10, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
The following was added to the end of the article by an IP editor: On page 75 of "Can anyone see Bermuda" written by Archie Jackson ( ISBN 0-9515598-5-0) he records, as a Captain for BSAA, the efforts he took part in to find the wreckage / survivors. He comments "(Stardust)...was being flown by a Captain on his first command". "We had all been warned not to enter cloud over the mountains as the turbulence and icing posed too great a threat". This material can't simply be tacked onto the end of the article in its current form, but it may very likely be useful with some augmentation and cleanup. I'm going to try to find a copy of the book. — Rich wales 16:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
using the term "even alien abduction" implies that alien abduction is implausible or ridiculous, this violates WP:NPOV Zer0n888 ( talk) 04:20, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
(I passed my Morse test for the Australian Ham licence in 1961, callsign VK2AUA for a few years thereafter.) By far the most plausible solution I've seen is the one posted by Brian (second message) at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/sten_010202.html, which he suggested was ETA SANTIAGO 1745 ST ENDAR with ST meaning "Standard Time" and AR meaning End Communication. However it was missing the following four quite relevant corroborative details that I think tighten up his argument considerably.
1. Harmer's prior Andean experience. According to the official report at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/sten_report3.html Harmer had had his P.M.G. (Post Master General, i.e. civilian) licence for only nine months, but had the benefit of six previous trans-Andean crossings so he was not unfamiliar with the routine in Santiago. Miscommunications with Chilean operators on previous occasions may have prompted him to creatively vary his routine by way of clarification (item 3).
2. EC = + = AR. The End Communication "procode" or logging abbreviation is + ("cross") = •▬•▬• . It is one of seven punctuation and procode codes, out of 24 listed in the 1986 ARRL Handbook, that are needed to satisfy FCC testing requirements. It is formed by running together either AR = •▬ / •▬• or EC = • / ▬•▬• , is sometimes written AR with a bar over it, and is sometimes transmitted as AR or EC instead of + (two letters instead of one procode). An operator accustomed to the AR form but not to + or EC might hear + as EC, or Harmer might have sent EC.
3. Why both END and +? The same failure by the Chilean operator to recognize EC as a terminator on this occasion may have happened to Harmer on some of his previous flights into Santiago (see 1 above), possibly even with the same operator, prompting him to add END creatively as clarifying backup this time.
4. ST = CLT != CLST. See http://www.horaoficial.cl/cambio.htm for a table of official Chilean time since 1900, and http://www.statoids.com/tcl.html for historical information on names of Chilean time zones. There are two important takeaways here.
So ST would make no sense in Chile in August 1947 for three reasons:
Conclusion Harmer transmitted the Star Dust's ETA and nothing else, in the format "ETASANTIAGO1745STEND+", with unknown spacing (we don't know which spaces he provided and which were interpolated by the receiving operator). Harmer likely intended ST to mean Standard Time, which the operator failed to recognize as qualifying the time (detail 4). Harmer may have spaced + as any of +, AR, or EC, which the Chilean read as EC but failed to recognize as a terminator because he'd only been taught + and/or AR (detail 2). Harmer may well have run into that problem on some of his six previous trans-Andean crossings (detail 1) and creatively added END by way of clarification (detail 3). When asked (twice) to say again, Harmer did so exactly the same way each time, and each time it sounded exactly the same to the Chilean operator. -- Vaughan Pratt 17:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
That looks suspiciously like the solution. The message was sent three times in the same form, with clear reception, so it was deliberate and intended to be easily understood. So the solution must be staring everyone in the face. The END jumps right out at you, so you just have to account for ST and EC. ST follows 1745, so it probably does mean Standard Time. Chile was indeed on year-round Standard Time in 1947. The one complication, the October 1946 decree that put Santiago one hour ahead to save energy usage, was rescinded in May 1947, three months before the accident. The snag is that Standard Time in Chile is known as Chilean Time and abbreviated to CLT, so Harmer should have sent CLT. A British operator might have understood '1745 ST', but the Chilean operator evidently didn't. END means 'end', and if the normal concluding + sign is a run-together EC (which I didn't know), that explains that as well. Using 'end' and '+' together could simply be an idiosyncrasy of Harmer's, intended to avoid ambiguity but in this case actually causing it. It was a very minor radio mix-up which only looked important because of the crash. -Hugo Barnacle 87.114.104.125 ( talk) 13:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
No, quite. It can't go in, absent reputable publication. So the answer -- which it probably is -- may remain hidden, here on the Talk page, just as Star Dust herself remained hidden in the glacier, for quite some time. -Hugo 84.93.53.199 ( talk) 19:14, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
I did a little rewrite of the third par of the intro because it was basically saying the same thing twice -- that no-one knows what STENDEC meant. I also removed the words "repeated twice" because they are incorrect (see below). User:Windroff restored the words "repeated twice" to my amendment, and I reverted him. Oh wow, he reverted me again and left an edit summary saying "EVERYTHING in the intro is explained in the article; the "mistery" relies in the fact that an apparent mistake was repeated 3 times, so it is notable enough to b..." So I have reverted him, and asked him to come to this talk page.
My worry is with the restoration of "repeated twice". As the text of the article states -- "At 5.41 PM. "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC" was the last of a series of Morse code messages transmitted by Star Dust ".
Exactly, it was the very last message, i.e. the final one. It can not have been repeated twice, unless we show there were two messages received after 5.41pm..
English words have meaning, and last means last, that nothing succeeds it. Hence my removal from the lead again of "repeated twice".
Regarding Windroff"s edit summary, it is POV and breaches WP:V to say the use of the word STENDEC three times was an "apparent mistake". Moriori ( talk) 02:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
At 5.41 PM. "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC" was the last of a series of Morse code messages transmitted by Star Dust during its flight, reporting its position, altitude, and a revised estimated time of arrival in Santiago of 5.45 PM. The Chilean Air Force radio operator at Santiago airport described the message as coming in "loud and clear", adding only that it had been given out very quickly. As he did not recognize the last word of this message, he requested clarification about the word from the aircraft. The message "STENDEC" was repeated by the aircraft twice in succession before contact was lost. This word has still not been definitively explained and has given rise to much speculation—including suggestions (made before the wreckage was finally discovered) that the aircraft and those aboard might have been the victims of a UFO encounter.
ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC" was the last of a series of Morse code messages transmitted by Star Dust during its flight, reporting its position, altitude, and a revised estimated time of arrival in Santiago of 5.45 PM
The Solution
So what happened? When solving such a problem, a person should first assume that a mistake had been made receiving the message. If it had been sent incorrectly, it would be more difficult to reconstruct. One ought always do the easier thing first. In this case, it means taking another look at the Morse message as it was received. After all, it had been transmitted three times before the plane vanished. An error in decoding seems entirely reasonable.
Once again, STENDEC reads / . . . / - / . / - . / - . . / . / - . - ./. The actual message probably ended with / - - . /. The wireless operator in Santiago must have assumed that the last letter was C, and added a dot after the first dash: / - . - . /. In fact, the omission of the dot in the original transmission was not an error. The letter was not C. Nor were the first two letters of this strange message ST: / . . . / - /. The dots and dash formed one letter, V: / . . . - /. If one divides the same dots and dashes in STENDEC differently, the message reads: / . . . - / . - / . - . . / . - - . /, which is VALP, the call sign for the airport at Valparaiso, some 110 kilometers north of Santiago. 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. In either case, they attempted to contact what they thought was the nearest airport, Valparaiso, not Santiago. The crew probably did not panic, but they were concerned about the lack of visibility and landmarks. Their curse was too much sky.
Morse allows a maximum of four dots and dashes in any letter, narrowing the possibility for mistakes. If not V, then the first letters might have been EIN, or IAR, but these combinations lead nowhere. The first letter has to be V, and the rest just fall into place—ALP—a perfect match in Morse. If the wireless operator in Santiago had read the code correctly, it may have made no difference. The accident occurred immediately after the message, STENDEC, or more correctly, VALP, was sent a third time. The airports at Santiago and Valparaiso may have lacked radar in 1947, so they could not have spotted a lost or stray aircraft, even if air-traffic controllers had been searching for one, even if they had all the time in the world.
The message “ETA Santiago 17.45 hrs. VALP” still seems confusing. The crew of the “Stardust” may have wanted to alert Santiago that it planned to land elsewhere, or the Morse operator at Santiago simply assumed that ETA referred to Santiago, since the Chilean capital had been its scheduled destination. The final message presumably read: “ETA 17.45 VALP.” The “Stardust” may have been trying to reach Valparaiso, not Santiago at all. A bit more information helps. The Lancastrian carried 1,380 gallons of fuel, providing about six hours and thirty minutes of flying time. The 632 nautical mile flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago took approximately three hours and forty-five minutes. By adhering to the flight plan and arriving over Mendoza at 18,000 feet, the distance of 526 nautical miles between Buenos Aires and Mendoza should have taken three hours and twelve minutes. The remaining 106 miles from Mendoza to Santiago at 26,000 feet would have added thirty-three minutes. The “Stardust” left Buenos Aires at 13.46 and reported as follows:
15.07 hrs.33°55’ S.62°33’ W.Height10,000feet, course 286°, speed196knots,ETASantiago17.30 hrs.
16.00 hrs.33°25’ S.65°30’ W.Height10,000feet, course 282°, speed196knots,ETASantiago17.30 hrs.
17.00 hrs.32°50’ S.68°30’ W.Height20,000feet,as- cending to24,000feet,speed194knots,ETASanti- ago 17.43 hrs.
17.33 hrs. ETA Santiago 17.45 hrs.
17.41 hrs.A signal was sent out by the aircraft that read: ETA (Santiago) 17.45 hrs. STENDEC
According to the flight plan, the aircraft was to fly at 168.53 nautical miles per hour, or 2.8 nautical miles per minute. The “Stardust” should have been in the air for 225 minutes (180 + 45 [12 + 33]=225). It departed from Buenos Aires at 13.46, and sent the mysterious message at 17.41, for an anticipated total flight time of 239 minutes (17.41-13.46=235 + 4=239 minutes). Navigator Harmer calculated that “Stardust” would be fourteen minutes late (239-225=14). But after rising above the clouds near Mendoza, the crew lost their bearings. The message at 17.33 did not include latitude and longitude. Reports at 16.00 and 17.00 hours indicated that the plane had traveled 1.25 degrees north during the past hour. Before it crashed at Mount Tupungato (33.20 S. 69.50 W.), forty-some minutes later, the “Stardust” had veered south from Mendoza (32.50 S. 68.45 W.). But where was it? These coordinates indicated that the crew had not decided at the last minute to fly the safer route to avoid the bad weather. It ended up too far from San Juan (31.40 S. 68.35 W.) to have chose this option. It is certain, however, that the “Stardust” was lost, and the crew thought the plane nearer Valparaiso than Santiago. The crew realized that it was lost and, by then, the aircraft may virtually have exhausted its fuel bucking the jet stream. This new interpretation explains a lesser mystery—why the crew failed to extend the landing gear when they thought the “Stardust” was within four minutes of touchdown. After all, at 17.41 the “Stardust” had announced its arrival at 17.45.
But the crew did not know where, exactly, they were. They would have lowered the landing gear when they saw the airport, but the pilot could not see the airport, or even the mountain. All they could do was frantically try to establish radio contact VALP. . . VALP. . .VALP.
Scherer from http://www.ntskeptics.org — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.101.23.135 ( talk) 18:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
This is a very very stupid rule, do not understand? All source is important! Just to mention a reliable source! The Wikipedia is often very stupid for this stupid rules! Who made these rules is ignorant and it is also those who follow them! Regards! Mike — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
94.167.219.119 (
talk) 22:47, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
In reference to the remark that the wireless operator at Santiago added a dot after the first dash is an insult to the integrity of the wireless operator. No wireless operator then or now adds anything to a message that they receive - they do not complete someone else's messages for them. They write down precisely what they hear whether it is a plain language or an encoded transmission. It is for others to decipher the message, most operators in my experience have no time to read the message - they write it down and pass it on. The operator at Santiago heard the word STENDEC and as it made no sense because he had never heard it before or since, he requested a repetition. No-one on here was present at the wireless station, no-one was present on the aircraft and therefore none of us know precisely what happened. I suspect but again it is an opinion that refraction of the radio wave occurred as it reflected off nearby mountains but that is only speculation. Me - well I served for 14 years as an Air Electronics Officer in the Royal Air Force, hold a BSc (First Class Honours) in Electronics and a PhD, I also hold my own Class A Transmission Licence and build all my own equipment. The wireless operator in a Lancastrian sat at his bench behind the Navigator who sat in his own little "cubby hole" immediately behind the pilot. The Flight Engineer sat on a jump seat beside the pilot. As a result of the Titanic disaster the International signal for a life threatening emergency was changed to SOS from CQD - it is quicker and easier to send. STENDEC would have taken a lot longer to send. SOS was and still is instantly recognisable to every wireless operator all over the world. STENDEC is unknown except to those who would have us believe it meant something. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
90.244.58.105 (
talk) 17:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
"::So the 'STENDEC' part of the message was perhaps misheard, due to atmospherics or similar, or not from Star Dust at all but from someone else, or may even have been an abbreviation known to ex-RAF Wireless Operators but not to the Chilean radio operator. This last one is unlikely however as no-one has come forward since with any knowledge of it." I am sorry but despite many exhaustive hours talking to the (now sadly), very rapidly dwindling number of ex-Royal Air Force wireless operators of the era that this discussion refers to, and a search of all the AP's - Air Publications, instructions to Wireless Operators published by the Air Ministry / Royal Air Force, there is no-one who knows, and no reference anywhere to the word "stendec," so your comment is without any foundation whatsoever. Every wireless operator of the 1940's when asked if they knew what "stendec" meant said they had never heard of it. Asked if it meant "We are about to crash" the response was usually one of "Well if you are about to crash either you will have sent an SOS and the key would be screwed down on constant transmission to aid any search and rescue, or it would have happened so fast that there would be no time to send anything not even a very rude word starting with "S" and ending with "T". I also do not accept that the Wireless Operator at Santiago put letters into a message, made it up or any other silly comment. He wrote down exactly what he heard and would have left gaps if he felt any letter was missing then asked for a repetition. I suspect that the wireless operator believing that they were about to land had removed his oxygen mask and was unknown to himself affected by hypoxia - the aircraft was at an altitude of about 15000 feet and hypoxia is a real and present danger above about 7000 feet. The fact is that no one was at Santiago, none of us were on board the aircraft, and therefore none of us know what happened. Everything is therefore conjecture. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
88.107.80.182 (
talk) 18:33, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
178.215.105.1 ( talk) 21:37, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
I manually checked if VALP (codename for Valparaiso's aeroport) and STENDEC are any similar in Morse.
There is a BBC Horizon TV programme about this aircraft at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z2vhg/horizon-20002001-vanished-the-plane-that-disappeared currently available on BBC iPlayer, at least within the UK. This shows photos of Lancastrian G-AGWH with the name painted on its starboard side as 'STAR DUST' at 04:04 and another photo of the same aircraft with the name 'STARDUST' at 26:26 on its port side - presumably at different times. I suggest mentioning both versions of the name. GilesW ( talk) 20:33, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I have removed a paragraph from the STENDEC section because it was unencyclopedic. That one single paragraph contained all of the following awful phrases -- "One possibility is.....the message might have..... Santiago might have .....it is possible.....perhaps an emergency.....may be responsible.....may have misunderstood....." Moriori ( talk) 03:49, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
Well, I did cite this page: http://www.ntskeptics.org/2010/2010december/december2010.htm
However, in light of what MilborneOne said, specifically, that we do not need to describe every theory, I can understand. I suppose I took it personally which isn't appropriate anyway
At any rate, this was in fact my first attempt at a cited edit, so, thank you for the feedback Moriori and MilborneOne Phobos Anomaly ( talk) 14:03, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
Stendal was the site of the Nazi`s elite parachute unit. 86.143.212.15 ( talk) 16:55, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
that's fascinating. but... so what?
duncanrmi ( talk) 21:56, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Discussion closed as this is not the place to speculate or do original research.
MilborneOne (
talk) 14:53, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
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Comparison of hypothises if:
STENDEC: ... - . -. -.. . .. . STENDES: ... - . -. -.. . ... (should there be a sixth dot without a gap before the last one) STR DEC: ... - . .. / -.. . .. . (a gap and a dot between a line) :::VALP: ...- .- _ ..... (a double unbroken line instead a dot and line combo; the sixth dot from STENDEC is absent) In ITU Morse code, following words have such codes (courtesy the same translator found in referenced BBC's archived page): STENDEC: ... - . -. -.. . -.-. STR DEC: ... - .-. / -.. . -.-. :::VALP: ...- .- .-.. .--. ::VALPA: ...- .- .-.. .--. .-
178.215.105.1 ( talk) 14:26, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
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Under the STENDEC heading (not going into that barrel of monkeys) one of the paragraphs ends "However, this theory does not match with the rest of the message, which was reporting the flight's estimated arrival time.[citation needed]" I do not see how this sentence needs a citation. In the same section, just before it, the 9th source "STENDEC' – Stardust's final mysterious message". BBC. 2 November 2000. Archived from the original on 20 January 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2011." is cited with the transmission which clearly states ETA 17.45. So, where are we not getting factual confirmation that the arrival time was transmitted? SnarkyValkyrie ( talk) 19:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
The second para of Background contains this: "Star Dust carried six passengers and a crew of five on its final flight. 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. Cook had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC)." Reg Cook was the Captain, and Norm Cook was the First Officer ... who had been awarded the DSO and DFC: Reg or Norm? Prisoner of Zenda ( talk) 11:37, 2 August 2022 (UTC)