S.T.E.N.D.E.C.

[mach78]

All right for those of you watching the program about Stardust,what do you think it meant?-
S antiago in TEN minutes or someting similar?
Everyone watching knew it was a CFIT, but interesting nonetheless

[Captain Crash]

Mach 78 -

Surprised you had time to prise yourself away from your pc - what with logging up your 1,000,072 posts 'n' all! :)

That is surely just a small error!! :rolleyes:

...But the above programme was interesting...!

{It's official - I cannot type! Edited for typo!)
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Forgot about the carb heat again!

[This message has been edited by Captain Crash (edited 02 November 2000).]

[EGAC]

Wasn't there an old Morse Coder quoted (in Flypast?) who said that if you changed/added just one dot - a very easy misread - the whole thing made sense?

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Safety is no accident

[Bluelabel]

Didn't see the programme, but morse is very easily subject to "interpretation" by the receiver.

For example, I doubt that stendec was sent with full stops between the letters. In morse the full stop is ._._._ , a very long winded way of doing it.

Equally, if the S and T are joined, you get
..._ . _. _.. ., or "vende" which I think is french for wind?

Just a thought!

[Rollingthunder]

For info,

Vende is french for "sells"

Wind is "Le Vent" in French

[mach78]

Yeah Bluelabel it does mean wind, but it does seem those guys had no way of knowing the wind.They may have experienced some turbulence but other than that started descent too far east with a very low groundspeed.Wonder how the fuel was going, did they make any attempt to extend west just in case, did they have to descend because of fuel?
Had they flown the route before in VMC but against the jetsteam therefore have any inkling from experience that this was a possibility.
Maybe the simple answer is no, but I do wonder how much apprehension and fear they had descending into the white-out conditions not 100% certain of their position.

Sorry Rollingthunder is correct with wind



[This message has been edited by mach78 (edited 02 November 2000).]

[mach78]

PS Capt Crash,
Capt Pprune fixed it for me in recognition of services rendered above and beyond the call of duty on the forums :)

[Whossat Forrus]

Absolute amateurs all of you.

STENDEC ... _ . _. _.. . _._.

STANDARD ARRIVAL ‘EAST’ END OF MESSAGE

... _ ._ ._. . ._._.

[EGAC]

Thanks, Whassat Forrus. I knew I'd heard your version.

Sorry to hear that you think that anyone who doesn't understand Morse in 2000AD is an amateur.


:) :) :)

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Safety is no accident

[mach78]

Meant to mention apologies to Skytruc87?
who also mentioned this topic earlier

[Capt Crash]

Captain Crash are we the same person???

:)

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WHOOP WHOOP
PULL UP!!!!!!

[AffirmBrest]

Interestingly enough, my girlfriend spotted almost immediately that 'STENDEC' is an anagram of 'DESCENT'.

Coincidence?

Note to self: do not get Mayday call confused with Telegraph crossword.

[Actuals]

Whossat
Well done ! I'd wondered about it being 'standard descent or arrival' too !

[2 sheds]

EGAC - can you elaborate on the "add one dot" theory? What was it supposed to spell out?

Does anyone know the full text of the alleged messages so that we can see STENDEC in context - e.g. how was it known that the signals came from the Lancastrian, what callsign did the aircraft use, was the main text in Q code?

It occurs to me that if the aircraft name were transmitted (though I don't know why it should be - but what was the practice at the time?), the Morse code for "Stardust" also spells out STEN**D*E**** if the **s are interference or weak signal. Just a thought - it does seem a bit of a coincidence.

[EGAC]

2 sheds

I'm not qualified in Morse and so I thought
that Whossat Forrus' post was the nearest
explanation to what I recalled seeing - on reflection it may have been in "The Times."

I can't remember the detail but do recall it was seemingly logical, as WF's post was.


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Safety is no accident

[RedOnCut]

Anybody thought of Hypoxia???
The program said the a/c had climbed to FL240 to get above weather.How good was the Lancastrian's pressurisation??
AffirmBreast:
Your girlfriends spot of the anagram bit; could it be attributed to a hypoxic Radio Operator???

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KOS

[EGAC]

RedOnCut

Look at Whossat Forrus' version. Just one dot moved and it all makes sense.

If I was a betting man this is where my money would be.

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Safety is no accident

[Arkroyal]

Good point redoncut

As far as I know the Lancastrian, being a civilianised Lancaster Bomber was NOT pressurised. The crew and pax would have been on oxygen.

Was anyone else exasperated by the programme's overly dramatic tone.Musical doom, suggestions of a 'dissappearance' which actually meant 'not found yet' and 'mysterious re-appearence' = 'found at last'

Excellent footage but as the 'Horizon' trailer says:

'Pure science - pure drama'. The two do not make good bedfellows.

[AffirmBrest]

Hypoxia - that's what we were thinking.

Though WF's version sounds very convincing.

[Captain Crash]

To Capt. Crash :

http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/redface.gifDOH! Unless I am writing posts to myself...and being really surprised when I see them...then we are not clones!! http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/redface.gif

And you seem to have got there first (Apr '99), so I guess that I may have to reinvent myself!!

(PS - If you actually are me...any chance you could do the dishes, 'cos I really am tired!) ;)

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Forgot about the carb heat again!

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

I agree with Arkroyal. The programme took over forty minutes to reach a conclusion which was pretty obvious without all that guff and twaddle, including alien abduction!
In addition to being unpressurised, I'm pretty sure the Lancastrian had no leading edge de-icing system. The Lancaster certainly hadn't. If icing conditions were forecast, some sort of paste was smeared on before flight and you hoped for the best. Airborne weather radar was still ten years away, of course. As was explained in the programme, navigation was by DR in that part of the world, due to the lack of radio navaids.
From the airfield of departure, it could be seen that the mountains were covered in thick cloud. The captain reportedly spent some considerable time pacing up and down, before eventually deciding to depart. Shortly after setting course, the radio operator sent a message that they were in cloud and heavy turbulence. (I'll bet!!)
At least the end would have been mercifully swift. "Transported unawares" you might say.
A sad and fascinating story.

[Ho Lee Prang]

I thought it might mean "Started En Route Descent": ST-EN-DEC.

Ho Lee

[2 sheds]

Whossat

Were you suggesting that "Standard Arrival" was a term in use at the time and that there was a "Standard Arrival East" as a recognised procedure - or was your post merely conjecture?

[twistedenginestarter]

Why were they using Morse, just a few minutes from landing?. Is that the national language of Chile? If I go to Santiago can anyone give me the Morse for 'Another lager please. I've only had 9 so far'

[AffirmBrest]

Because it was 19fifty-something and proper radios weren't invented yet. Heard of 'Q-codes'? :) :)

[Konkordski]

Standard arrival East always sounded good. The only other half-reasonable suggestion I've seen was that STENDEC was a badly-bodged STANDBY.

[JuniorJetClubber]

Arkroyal

I also agree that the programme was exasperating. Enjoyed it because the story was interesting but with the exception of the STENDEC message there clearly wasn't much of a mystery in the rest of the story. Really felt they could have told the story of the flight and the investigation of the crash site without trying to make it sound like an Inspector Morse story.

However I was channel hopping between this and a laughably bad programme on UFOs on Channel 5. That made the Horizon programme look like an AAIB investigation. Utter rubbish!

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JJC

[Random Electron]

I have an Enlish language translation of the Argintine Air Force accident investigation, complete with radio transmissions and WX reports.

The report spans 47 years.

If anybody is interested, I'll scan it and post it?

I found it compelling reading, not the least of which was the crew duty hours prior to the disaster.