STENDEC

The memory is a funny thing. Years ago when I was quite young, I used to collect re-prints of 50's comic books published by Marvel before Stan Lee went on to create Spider-Man/Fantastic Four/X-Men etc. They went under the banner of Atlas Comics and had titles like Tales of Suspense, Strange Worlds and Tales to Astonish, and usually contained short comic book tales akin to Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. At an impressionable age, they really blew my mind and remain a delight. In fact I started to track them down on ebay to see if they were as good as I recalled, and they were. They were also probably my first exposure to the writing talents of Stan 'The Man' Lee and the wonderfully weird world of artist Steve Ditko.

But that isn't really where the post is going. Tonight after watching an episode of the recently obtained boxset of Supernatural (a show that has inexpicably slipped under my radar for four seasons, and is really rather fantastic), I was reminded of a story I read when I was probably no more than six years old in one of those Atlas Comics reprints. It purported to be a true story of the Stardust Airliner that vanished from the skies mid-flight in 1947. I don't recall the details by now but what I do remember is the final panel that recounted the final radio message from the Stardust minutes before it vanished; it was

ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 [standard time] STENDEC

The meaning of the word STENDEC has never been conclusively explained, the comic book told me.

Somewhat bizarrely the word STENDEC has stuck with me for over thirty years. I've forgotten the detail of people's faces, names, dates and experiences, but STENDEC stuck with me. When this episode of Supernatural concerning a demon causing a series of plane crashes begun, STENDEC suddenly popped into my head for the first time in a few years, and as the internet was at hand, I typed it into Google, expecting some seriously random results.

But it turns out that that story in a reprint of a fifties comic was based on an actual event, and finally after thirty years the mystery of the word opened up for me again.

This is from a BBC site concerning a Horizon programme about the missing Stardust...

On August 2nd 1947, a British civilian version of the wartime Lancaster bomber took off from Buenos Aires airport on a scheduled flight to Santiago. There were 5 crew and 6 passengers on board the plane - named "Stardust". But Stardust never made it to Santiago. Instead it vanished when it was apparently just a few minutes from touchdown. One final strange morse code radio message - "STENDEC" - was sent, but after that nothing more was heard from the plane.

Despite a massive search of the Andes mountains no trace of the plane was ever found. For 53 years the families of those who disappeared have not known what happened to their loved ones.

But earlier this year the plane suddenly reappeared on a glacier high up in the Andes, more than 50 km’s from the area where the plane was last reported. In February this year the Argentine army arranged a major expedition to visit the crash site beneath the massive Tupangato peak (6800m). Their aim was to bring back the human remains which had been found at the site, so that an attempt could be made at identifying them. The expedition also offered a unique opportunity for crash investigators to see if they could finally explain what happened to the ill-fated plane.

The expedition discovered the plane and some human remains, and explained much of the mystery surrounding the Stardust's disappearance: the high altitude 'jetstream' in all probability caused the Stadust to veer from its course and collide with Mount Tupangato; the plane then became buried in the glacier, travelling downhill under the influence of gravity until it reached a warmer zone, and the ice began to melt. Fifty years later, the Stardust had revealed its secrets.
All save for one: STENDEC.
For a long time it became part of the tapestry of UFO conspiracy theories (and becoming the name of a Spanish UFO magazine); but of course, once the Stardust was discovered, we could be fairly certain that little green men had nothing to do with it. If I recall correctly, that Atlas story certainly indicated the UFO angle, and was probably why it captured my imagination at an early age; who doesn't love a UFO story when they're a kid?
In 1947 the official report into Stardust’s disappearance had this to say on the subject of STENDEC:
The 17.41 signal was received by Santiago only 4 minutes before the ETA. The Chilean radio operator at Santiago states that the reception of the signal was loud and clear but that it was given out very fast. Not understanding the word "STENDEC" he queried it and had the same word repeated by the aircraft twice in succession. A solution to the word "STENDEC" has not been found. From this time on nothing further was heard from the aircraft and no contact was made with the control tower at Santiago. All further calls were unanswered.

Type STENDEC into Google and you'll find a multitude of theories:

• STENDEC is an anagram of DESCENT. Variations suggested that the crew might have been suffering from hypoxia (lack of oxygen) as the Lancastrian was unpressurised and the plane was flying at 24000 feet, which would have led the radio operator to scramble the message. Other explanations for the appearance of an anagram in an otherwise routine message included a dyxlexic radio operator and/or receiver in Santiago, and playfulness on behalf of Stardust’s radio operator.
• The radio operator meant to say Stardust. STENDEC and Stardust have some similarities both in Morse code and English.
• Various people came up with intriguing, imaginative and sometimes amusing messages based on using STENDEC as a series of initials: Hence we have:"Santiago tower message now descending entering cloud" (or "Santiago tower aircraft now descending entering cloud")"Stardust tank empty no diesel expected crash""Systems to the end navigation depends entirely on circle" (although this correspondent conceded that "the last bit may be a bit muddled")."Santiago tower even navigator doesn’t exactly know"

STENDEC (or anything similar to the word ) doesn't appear in any language apparently, so the mystery will remain unsolved. I'm sure the truth is really rather prosaic (as is often the case), but at least tonight I've resolved a word that's been bouncing around unarrested in my subconscious for thirty years. Maybe one day I'll find the comic it appeared in too, and I can close the circle completely...