Bsaa Stardust Disappearance 1947

Dont know if anybody knows anymore about this.

The Stardust was a british civil airliner that went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1947 no trace of it was found for 50 years Then it was found located miles of course.It had been suggested at the time that it the subject of a ufo encounter.
The really strange thing is that their last morse radio broadcast was the message STENDEC nobody in flight control knew what that meant so they asked for them to repeat the message it came back clearly STENDEC nothing more was heard from them and the mystery message has never been explained.

Hi there, interesting and even as old as I am, no I do not remember this, although it might help if a location had been mentioned.

STENDEC? As this was a morse message, could it have been....ST....end.....EC?

None the wiser if it was. Obviously it meant something to the sender.

Sure somebody will soon be along to explain and it's link to green men.

Was it found intact? Did they have black boxes back then?

Morse code? From an airplane ca 1947? I thought they had radios back then...

And the obvious question... Source? How do we know this isnt just made up on the spot?

I recall that they found wreckage some time ago.

From wikipedia:

In the late 1990s, pieces of wreckage from the missing aircraft began to emerge from glacial ice in the Andes mountains near Santiago. It is now assumed that the crew became confused as to their exact location whilst flying at high altitudes through the (then poorly understood) jet stream. Mistakenly believing that they had already cleared the mountain tops before starting their descent, when in fact they were still behind cloud-covered peaks, Star Dust slammed into Mount Tupungato, killing all aboard and burying the wreckage in snow and ice.

Stardust Disappearance

OK, looked up "Stardust" and yes I remember the finding of the crashed plane in a glacier as it melted.

It was an old WW2 bomber, Lancaster, design, converted to passenger use and would not have had very sophisticated equipment.

(Unlike the recent accident involving a very sophisticated Russian plane?)

Radio yes, but I still think that morse was used as it was easier to understand?

reply to post by dowot


Sorry yes it was Argentina .Just found out this small short lived UK airline lost 2 airliners in unexplained circumstances in the Bermuda triangle one in 1948 and one in 1949 Star Airel and Star Tiger unlucky? careless? cursed?

Originally posted by dashdespatch
reply to post by dowot

 

Sorry yes it was Argentina .Just found out this small short lived UK airline lost 2 airliners in unexplained circumstances in the Bermuda triangle one in 1948 and one in 1949 Star Airel and Star Tiger unlucky? careless? cursed?

edit on 3-7-2012 by dashdespatch because: (no reason given)

Thanks, easy to get carried away, forgot to add a link in another post, so we are all to blame.

All begin with ST? Wonder if that is a clue to STENDEC.

Looks like Wiki has some good info.. en.wikipedia.org...

Strange how most of the flight crew had C as the first letter of their surnames, and that there was 2 Cooks!

I never like to blame pilots, as it is the easy option, but I wonder how many pilots, just after the war, were not as well trained as others, or thought their abilities were so much better.

There were quite a few crashes in 1947, planecrashinfo.com... obviously as a result of the reuse of military planes, possibly now beyond their normal working life, and the general lack of knowledge of air routes as well as lack of equipment.

It was not much latter that the Comet aircraft, heralded as the new breed and subsequently started to fall out of the sky because of unknown about stress fracturing.

reply to post by dowot


Would be interestig to know how many ww2 planes disappeared i "mysterious" circumstances that were put down to lost in action.

I do think however all 3 of these pilots were experienced ex RAF ww2 pilots

reply to post by dashdespatch


Please do not get me wrong.

Having flown jump seat to Majorca, in the days of the old Britannia aircraft, I have the highest regard for all aircrew as well as the ground crew.

Yes they were well regarded flying crew.

But it is a bit human nature to think that, having survived the war, you were better skilled than others. Many must have been, but some might have enjoyed that feeling yet have not been so skilled. If you see what I mean.

To be honest, I would think that over-caution was more likely than anything else, with plots checked and double checked, but flying was increasing at a great rate and the variables were only just beginning to be understood. How many bombing raids were not made on target due to unplanned external conditions?

Looking at that list of crashes, it seems amazing anyone took the risk! Imagine if that was still the norm?? How did Douglas survive as so many of the crashes were their planes?

Flying has come a long way since.

I used to teach a defensive driving class system that was invented shortly after WWII, because of all the deaths on the road caused by former soldiers returning home from the war. They tended to drive much faster, because they had learned they had to, and rely on their skills to try to avoid other cars, and getting into bad situations. The same would have been true for pilots. After years of doing something a certain way, it's very hard to unlearn the same thing. Pilots would tend to put their aircraft into situations they didn't need to anymore, because for so long they did have to.

Originally posted by dashdespatch
Dont know if anybody knows anymore about this.

The Stardust was a british civil airliner that went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1947 no trace of it was found for 50 years Then it was found located miles of course.It had been suggested at the time that it the subject of a ufo encounter.
The really strange thing is that their last morse radio broadcast was the message STENDEC nobody in flight control knew what that meant so they asked for them to repeat the message it came back clearly STENDEC nothing more was heard from them and the mystery message has never been explained.

There was a quite good read study made by the North Texas Skeptics made in december 2010 about this matter and they seem to have 'cracked' the mystery of STENDEC very nicely that would make a lot of sense - the study seems to come to the conclusion that the receiving radio operator has made a mistake and what they came up with sounds very plausible.

The study can be found here:

www.ntskeptics.org...

- M

reply to post by Multiplex


Thanks for that link..an interesting read. However i dont think they prove anything they only assume the argentine morse opperator was not very good at morse code its an idea but no more conclusive that many others out there

I have just typed STENDEC into google, there about as many theories as entries most of which prove what it means (but most have different answers!)

Actually, one of the best analysis I've read about the "STENDEC" mystery is this one, also found here.

It makes some sense, at least...