Stardust
 

Anyone elses see the BBC Horizon porgramme last night on the 1947 'Stardust' disappearance?

Interesting, but some odd conclusions:

"There was no engine failure" - because they found a prop with damage that indicated it was turning when it impacted - fine but they only found one engine and prop so that's hardly conclusive.

"The aircraft was in normal flight because the wheels were retracted". They found both main wheels on the glacier, separated from the wing parts and oleos etc). They figure this from the lack of damage to the wheels, oner of which is still inflated, but make the leap of judgement that if the aircraft had been in trouble it would have had the wheels down trying to land. (Aircraft was in cloud and over mountainous terrain). Even given that the crew allegedly thought they had cleared the mountains, I'm still not convinced of this arguement.

However, overall it was very interesting and the idea that the aircraft's ground speed was dramatically reduced by the jetstream, causing them to overestimate their progress and therefore descend through cloud into the mountains (I believe it was the aircraft commander's first flight on the route as first pilot) seems a logical explanation.

But what does STENDEC mean?

Look at the thread in Rumours and News about s.t.e.n.d.e.c. , there's going on some speculations about it. Myself, I have no clue of what it could mean.
Nevertheless, it was obvious from the beginning that it was CFIT, no surprise there. It just was a mistery that they couldn't find the wreckage rightaway. But that has been solved now (I think).

JB