Any thoughts on STENDEC

I said ‘calm’, rather than in a panicing due to circumstances. From the nature of the transmission, it wasn’t anything different to any other transmission. Any experienced morse operator will send rapidly.

Steve

Point taken – but I wasn’t trying to imply any ‘panicing’, merely that the crew (the w/op in particular) was busy. The receiver on the ground would also be an experienced w/op and I felt that in order for him to comment that it was ‘rapid’ meant faster than the norm. he would be used to as an experienced w/op. I guess we don’t really know enough about the circumstances to conclude anything from the speed – Stardust’s w/op might just have been quick on the key in general.

Shortly after the programme was first shown on the BBC there was a letter published in Aeroplane written by a couple of ex-RAF W/Ops with thier ideas about the meaning of STENDEC. I don’t have the mag anymore and I can’t remember the exact details, but having gone through the various possibilities their conclusion was that STENDEC was probably a mis-interpretation of “End”, which was apparently commonly used by RAF wireless ops of the time when about to switch over to voice communication from morse (the W/Op on ‘Stardust’ was ex-RAF). Being as the crew thought they were close to thier destination, they were about to switch over to talk to approach control.
They theorised that the civvy-trained operator on the ground wouldn’t have been aware of the use of ‘End’ and misinterpreted it as ‘STENDEC’.

I said ‘calm’, rather than in a panicing due to circumstances. From the nature of the transmission, it wasn’t anything different to any other transmission. Any experienced morse operator will send rapidly.

Steve

The radio operator must have been in a calm radio conversation with the ground

Not so sure on the ‘calm’ aspect – the report was that the message was sent ‘rapidly’, although ‘STENDEC’ was repeated indentically twice more by the receiver’s request. I speculate that the ‘rapid’ transmission indicates a busy w/op & aircrew, probably preparing to descend from cruise – albeit tragically too soon as events would tell.

I agree that the exact repetition of ‘STENDEC’, three times must exclude hypoxia. STENDEC obviously meant something to the w/op and he must have thought the meaning obvious to the receiver or some brief elaboration would have been forthcoming. Very strange though is that it was repeated TWICE to a querying receiver but no qualifying elaboration – however brief – was forthcoming.

To me I speculate the w/op was a) compos mentis, b) seems very busy at the time, and c) confident that the receiver would understand STENDEC.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree – it seems most likely to me that it’s a mis-transcribed message. By rearranging the breaks between letters or adding a dot or dash at the start (possible because of the way the equipment worked), then it seems to spell out several plausible messages.

The aircraft was flying in cloud and flew straight into the mountain side. Destruction of the aircraft and the death of those on board would have been instant, therefore the message must have been sent before impact.

The radio operator must have been in a calm radio conversation with the ground, to be able to resend the word twice more after the original transmission. He is unlikely to have sent the message incorrectly three times.

Steve

Hypoxia?

No. Not even one of the letters is the same 😉

Moggy

Lots more here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vanished/stendec.html

Hypoxia?

I think I go with the theory that the w/op scrambled the word “descent” for reasons unknown. Too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?

You might also want to have a read of the BBC Horizon web page about STENDEC.

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

Steve

I remember watching the TV program a couple of years ago, and so far, nobody I have spoken to knows any meaning or remembers the term used by the military or civilian aviation.

If I remember the end of the program, it mentioned that with the strange loss of the aircraft without trace, a UFO Society adopted the word STENDEC as their group name.

Steve