# Stendec



## Worldspan (Jan 2, 2012)

Perhaps this is old hat by now, but someone who knew that I was a former RO suggested that I enter this into Google.
W


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## beedeesea (Feb 28, 2006)

Interesting story, Worldspan, never came across it before.

Brian


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## King Ratt (Aug 23, 2005)

Supposedly a cryptic message sent by an aircraft radio officer before the flight vanished. I suspect he was opening his transmission with the often used "de de de dah dit" which might have been received as STE. The aircraft was possibly being buffeted by a head wind which prevented the RO from sending decent morse.


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## Worldspan (Jan 2, 2012)

Thanks for the good suggestion ... not seen that on the other website.
W


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## beedeesea (Feb 28, 2006)

Yes, but how did he manage to send exactly the same sequence of characters twice when queried by the ground operator, making it three times in all?

Brian


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

There was a BBC do***entary about this incident some years back. One of those: "It's a mystery .." things.

I remember them recovering bits of the plane from the glacier many years after the event.


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

BobClay said:


> There was a BBC do***entary about this incident some years back. One of those: "It's a mystery .." things.
> 
> I remember them recovering bits of the plane from the glacier many years after the event.


I've also seen that do***entary and it implied that the wreck had only appeared after many years of slowly moving down the mountain with the glacier. Oddly though, years before the plane appeared, I read in a book called "Off The Beam" (about the life of an aircraft R/O who flew for the same airline as the missing plane) that not long after the Lancastrian went missing a "bandit" was apprehended and found to be wearing the lost pilot's wris****ch. 

It's one of the most enduring lost a/c stories and has even been linked to UFO abductions!! Probably still up there, flying in formation with Amelia Earhart and Flight 9. 

S2004


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

As I remember it one of the engines was definitely identified to the plane but that might be my memory playing tricks. 

Not quite ready to accept a converted Lancaster being abducted by an interstellar spacecraft just yet.


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## cueball44 (Feb 15, 2010)

Is there a R/O who can make sense of this ?


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

BobClay said:


> As I remember it one of the engines was definitely identified to the plane but that might be my memory playing tricks.
> 
> Not quite ready to accept a converted Lancaster being abducted by an interstellar spacecraft just yet.


What confused me was that the do***entary seemed to imply that the expedition they filmed was the first to find the plane but looking again at the book I mentioned it seems as though the smuggler wearing the watch was captured some years after the crash but well before the film was made. Bit of poetic licence on the film-makers part, I think! 

The airline was Britsh South American Airways and the Andes loss was one of several they suffered in the late 40s, early 50s. 

73

2004


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## Paul Braxton (Jul 21, 2005)

Haven't done any real reading about this but for what it's worth, my thought is that 'STENDEC' could be interpreted as: ST (Star Tiger?) END (imminent end of the flight into the glacier) EC (.-.-. end of transmission).

Can't remember if the name of the aircraft was Star Tiger, but I seem to recall it was. Apologies if it wasn't. There was a podcast on this event in the British broadcaster Howard Hughes' "The Unexplained" ongoing series a few months back. For those who don't know about Howie, he does a pretty good show most weeks and some of his guests are quite interesting, although certainly not all of them. Many of the subject matters discussed are absolutely nothing which would fall under the umbrella of the show's title.

Just go to theunexplained.tv for a listen.


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## Alfred Ford (Aug 5, 2010)

The aircraft was "STARDUST", registration G-AGWH with British South American Airways (BSAA), and I was a passenger on it (with my mother) several months before the accident. The route was from LHR to Lisbon/ (overnight)/Dakar/Natal/Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires (Moron Apt). The route then continued to Santiago (Chile). The crash ocurred in 1947 on the Tupungato mountain (Province of Mendoza in Argentina) and parts appeared in January 2000.


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## NoR (Mar 24, 2008)

The aircraft was flying at about 24,000ft in order to cross the Andes. She was unpressurized so the crew and passengers would have been dependent on oxygen. I have often wondered whether there was something amiss with the oxygen supply so that the crew became hypoxic. This could cause the R/O to transmit a garbled signal as one of the factors with hypoxia is that you become confused without realising it.

Below is a link to a YouTube video showing the effects of hypoxia.

https://youtu.be/n_MI9UiYwJA


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

Alfred Ford said:


> The aircraft was "STARDUST", registration G-AGWH with British South American Airways (BSAA), and I was a passenger on it (with my mother) several months before the accident. The route was from LHR to Lisbon/ (overnight)/Dakar/Natal/Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires (Moron Apt). The route then continued to Santiago (Chile). The crash ocurred in 1947 on the Tupungato mountain (Province of Mendoza in Argentina) and parts appeared in January 2000.


Fascinating Alfred,

Do you have any memories of the actual flight over the mountians? 

The book I mentioned in an earlier post describes the hazards of that leg of the journey and mentions that a highly experienced pilot was based in Argentina to take command of flights on that leg. 

There's a lot about STENDEC on YouTube but I can't find the original do***entary about the expedition that went to the crash site.

2004


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

I seem to remember one theory put forward was that there was no knowledge of the 'jet stream' in those days and they were using dead reckoning on their speed without realising they were flying into it, so began to descend before they'd cleared the mountains.

At least that's what the do***entary I saw came up with. It might have been an 'Horizon' programme, I'm not sure, it was quite a few years ago.


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

Searched around and found this in the BBC Archives.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/vanished.shtml


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

Yes Bob,

That's the same doc I saw. The jet stream wasn't widely known about but the B29s rading Japan had encountered it and of course the Japanese used it for their balloon bombing campaign.

73

2004


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

BobClay said:


> Searched around and found this in the BBC Archives.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/vanished.shtml


Thanks Bob.

Looks like the BBC have it wrong, the plane must have been found (but not officially!) in the late 40s or 50s, as the guy who wrote the book I quoted retired as an R/O on Comets in 1957 and wrote the book in 1970. 

Anyway, the main thing is how that STENDEC aspect of the story has lived on, despite the "mystery" being solved.

2004


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

Searcher2004 said:


> Thanks Bob.
> 
> Looks like the BBC have it wrong, the plane must have been found (but not officially!) in the late 40s or 50s, as the guy who wrote the book I quoted retired as an R/O on Comets in 1957 and wrote the book in 1970.
> 
> ...


Scan from "Off The Beam"

2004


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

That is interesting. Although bear in mind his statement for the height of Aconcagua is out by 6000 feet. I'm amazed that if they found the wreck back then nothing was said about it. 

It certainly brings into question the Horizon theory that the plane flew into the mountain which created an avalanche that buried it deep into the glacier.


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

Yes, I noticed the "29000 ft" peak! A lot is heresay but there seems enough detail there to make a convincing case. 

The book is worth a read, I found my copy at Hay-on-Wye many moons ago and it covers the author's career from ship's R/O, thru Ferry Command in WW2 up to the jet age, Robert Chandler is the writer. 

2004


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## Alfred Ford (Aug 5, 2010)

Searcher2004 said:


> Fascinating Alfred,
> 
> Do you have any memories of the actual flight over the mountians?
> 
> ...


We lived in Buenos Aires and my mother and I were returning from a family visit to the UK after the war had ended. My father had travelled to the USA on a liberty ship (another story!). Although I was only 9 I have quite a few memories of the flight, part of which was under the command of Capt.R.C.Alabaster, later one of the pilots of the very first commercial flight of the Comet. Living in BA I have crossed the Andes many times under conditions very different from those that STARDUST had to face. The general opinion is that they had encountered the "jetstream" which in those days was unknown, as has been mentioned in articles quoted on this page. I have kept the newspaper cuttings about the finding of the remains in the year 2000.


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

Thanks Alfred,

That must have been quite an adventure in 1947! 

I located the Horizon video on:-

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2w5bpu

They do indeed draw the jet stream conclusion and it does make sense. The mystery of the Chiliean search remains, if they did find the plane why was it not made public? 

Thanks again,

2004


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

Thanks for that Searcher. I watched it again still as fascinated as when I first saw it. I've been on Google Earth and located that glacier running eastward down from Tupungato. The GE views of that area are excellent high definition and it wasn't difficult to compare it with some of the shots from the program.

It really is quite incredible country.

STENDEC is left as a mystery to an otherwise very sad story.


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## GW3OQK (Jun 10, 2010)

In an official report somewhere on line it said the message was sent at fast speed and was taken by an inexperienced lady operator. You can't send fast with T1154 as the big relay just can't follow. Other text published was obviously not what was copied for it used terms like "E.T.A." At the end "EC" is probably "AR" or "+". Maybe the message was "Stdbi +" but the lady copied it wrongly each time. 
Still a mystery, but I wonder if anything more will emerge from that glacier.
73, Andrew


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

The Horizon programme was made in 2000. You would think more of the aircraft has been deposited out ... but is there anybody up there to examine it ? It's a very remote place looking at Google Earth.


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

GW3OQK said:


> In an official report somewhere on line it said the message was sent at fast speed and was taken by an inexperienced lady operator. You can't send fast with T1154 as the big relay just can't follow. Other text published was obviously not what was copied for it used terms like "E.T.A." At the end "EC" is probably "AR" or "+". Maybe the message was "Stdbi +" but the lady copied it wrongly each time.
> Still a mystery, but I wonder if anything more will emerge from that glacier.
> 73, Andrew


Wouldn't AS be used for standby or wait? Or did commercial ops use something else.

2004


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## cueball44 (Feb 15, 2010)

GW3OQK said:


> In an official report somewhere on line it said the message was sent at fast speed and was taken by an inexperienced lady operator. You can't send fast with T1154 as the big relay just can't follow. Other text published was obviously not what was copied for it used terms like "E.T.A." At the end "EC" is probably "AR" or "+". Maybe the message was "Stdbi +" but the lady copied it wrongly each time.
> Still a mystery, but I wonder if anything more will emerge from that glacier.
> 73, Andrew


 See #9 . Maybe that will help you understand it.


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## Worldspan (Jan 2, 2012)

A bit off-topic but I'm wondering about the comment by GW3OQK regarding the T1154. _(You can't send fast with T1154 as the big relay just can't follow.)_ Does anyone know how long the R1155/T1154 combination continued in use by commercial airlines? 

Before settling for Norwood Tech for my PMG, I went to look at a private school somewhere in London (around 1956). They were advertising courses for both Marine and CAA Radio Officers. I was shown the radio gear but didn't recognise the Oceanspan etc; however, I did recognise the R1155 because I had one and I recognised the T1155 from the government surplus shops in London. I wonder when the last CAA R/Os finally disappeared for good. 

W


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