Star Dust crash

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Star Dust crash
Avro Avro 691 Lancastrian 3 G-AGWH cn 1280 'Stardust' BSAA (British South American Airways) (15215624954) .jpg

The G-AGWH Star Dust

Accident summary
Accident type Controlled flight into the terrain
place Tupungato (volcano)
date August 2, 1947
Fatalities 11
Survivors no
Aircraft
Aircraft type Avro 691
operator British South American Airways
Mark G-AGWH
Surname Star Dust
Passengers 6th
crew 5
Lists of aviation accidents

The Star Dust (German: "Stardust") was a passenger airplane of the type Avro 691 Lancastrian 3 airline British South American Airways (BSAA). The aircraft with the aircraft registration G-AGWH had an accident on August 2, 1947 under long unexplained circumstances in a snow storm over the Argentine Andes . The investigation of the course of the accident and the cause of the crash was only possible more than 50 years later through the discovery and analysis of wreckage. There were eleven people on board - five crew members (flight captain RJ Cook, first officer NH Cook, second officer DS Checklin, radio officer Dennis B. Harmer and stewardess Iris M. Evans) and six passengers. In addition to STAR DUST, the usual English spelling STARDUST was used for the name on the nose of the aircraft.

Flight history

On the day of the crash, the aircraft was on the Buenos Aires - Santiago de Chile route with flight number CS59 and was supposed to cross the Andes massif from east to west after flying over the city of Mendoza .

Despite the extremely bad weather conditions over the mountains with limited or no longer available earth visibility , the pilots had decided on a direct Andes crossing route instead of using one of the alternative routes recommended for such cases. According to the radio telegraphic report from 5:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), they climbed to an altitude of 24,000 ft (approx. 7,300  m ) to cross the Andes  : “1700 hrs 32 ° 50 'S 68 ° 30' W, height 20,000 feet, ascending to 24,000 feet, speed 194 knots, ETA Santiago 1743 hrs ", translated:" Position at 5:00 p.m. is 32 ° 50 'South, 68 ° 30' West, altitude 20,000 feet, increase to 24,000 feet, speed ( Displayed speed compared to the surrounding air ) 194 knots, estimated time of arrival in Santiago de Chile 17:43. "

Last telegraph

At 17:33 GMT, the radio operator at Los Cerillos Airport in Santiago de Chile received the message from the aircraft: "ETA Santiago 1745 hrs" (estimated time of arrival in Santiago 17:45). Then the last message given loud and clear, but at high speed, at 17:41 GMT was recorded by the ground radio operator as: "ETA Santiago 1745 hrs STENDEC". Since the ground radio operator had not understood the meaning of the word STENDEC, he asked for a repetition, which the Star Dust radio operator immediately transmitted and which the radio operator read in the same way.

The meaning of the letters STENDEC has not yet been clarified beyond doubt. With a single, slightly shifted telegraphic pause within the sequence of letters, the Morse code can be understood as "STR DEC", which can be interpreted as a starting descent and corresponded to an abbreviation for "begin descent" that was quite common in aeronautical telegraphy at the time. The fact that the collision did not take place after an engine failure, but with the engines running normally below the cruising altitude for crossing the Andes could also indicate that a descent had begun. In this case, the pilots would have assumed an uncorrected aircraft position at the end of the Andes crossing and near the airport of Santiago de Chile, despite strong winds at high altitude contrary to the flight direction.

All further attempts at contact via telegraph remained unanswered.

After the crash

Because of the dense snow storm you came from a crash of Star Dust, as the pilot had just before the connection to the aircraft demolished, expressed her last radio message, the star dust that the landing on Santiago de Chile located. Therefore, the first thing to do was to search the vicinity of the airport. But since no wreckage was found, the search was continued. Since there was a British diplomatic courier with secret papers among the six passengers and the five-person crew, the British government pushed for an investigation into the whereabouts of the Star Dust.

Despite an intensive search, which also included various mountain ranges, not a single piece of debris was found. The plane was initially lost.

Discovery of the wreckage

Only more than 50 years later, on January 23, 2000, did a group of mountaineers discover an aircraft engine at the foot of the Tupungato . An expedition team of the Argentine army then examined the area and found more wreckage. The letters "Star Dust" could be seen on one. It is believed that around 10% of the remains have been found.

On the basis of the damage and deformation of a propeller, it was possible to prove that the engines must have been running at almost the same speed as the cruising speed at the moment of the plane crash. From other debris found, including the two wheels of the main landing gear, it could be concluded that it had not yet been extended. From these indications and based on the deformation of the wreckage, experts conclude that a controlled flight directly into the mountainside , with normally running engines.

So far, no indications have been found for an uncontrolled crash, for example due to engine, propeller or wing damage, or for a deliberately initiated emergency landing.

Causes of crashes

The most likely explanation for the cause of the accident is the jet stream . At that time, pilots had hardly any experience with this high altitude wind of up to 400 km / h , as only a few aircraft - such as Lancastrians like the Star Dust - could even fly high enough to get caught in the jet stream. Based on the weather records of the time, today's experts believe it is likely that the jet stream was blowing towards the Star Dust at around 100 miles per hour (around 160 km / h). This would have slowed the aircraft down significantly without the pilots noticing.

Without ground visibility and astronavigation - it is not known whether astronomical navigation was even possible and used on this flight - it was only possible to determine the relative airspeed in relation to the surrounding air with the on-board instruments of the time and not - as was the case with inertial navigation systems from the late 1960s - also Speed ​​over ground. At that time navigators determined what was not possible in the Star Dust because of the snow storm with the help of the clock and with mapped objects on the ground ( dead reckoning ) .

Due to the elapsed time and the measured speed, the crew believed they were already beyond the mountain range, gave the last radio message announcing an expected landing at Santiago airport in four minutes, and directed the descent and thus also the approach a. When the machine began to descend, it must have rammed the Tupungato head-on. Experts suspect that the impact did not take place in the summit area, but on a slightly lower slope and that an avalanche was triggered in the area above , which completely buried the aircraft debris with the injured occupants. Over time they became part of the glacier and slowly moved with it towards the valley.

conspiracy theories

In the course of the following years rumors arose about the whereabouts, including UFO and conspiracy theories about the courier on board . Many attempts have also been made to interpret the supposed radio signal "STENDEC" differently. A Spanish UFO magazine used the slightly modified form STENDEK as its title.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. 1947 Official Accident Report. (d) The Crew. January 1, 2001, accessed September 4, 2012 .
  2. Philip Jarrett: Captain Cook's last voyage . In: Airplane Monthly. April 2000, p. 22 ff.
  3. 1947 Official Accident Report / page 4 . On pbs.org (accessed December 28, 2017)
  4. a b c d Vanished: The Plane That Disappeared. BBC2, November 2, 2000, accessed September 4, 2012 .
  5. "STENDEC" - the mysterious last message of the Startdust on stendec.de (last accessed on June 2, 2015)

Coordinates: 33 ° 21 ′ 16 ″  S , 69 ° 46 ′ 7 ″  W