BSAA airliner over Andes transmits ‘S T E N D E C’ in Morse, vanishes

STENDECbigThey called her Star Dust.

The British South American Airways (BSAA) Avro Lancastrian airliner (registration G-AGWH) took off from Buenos Aires, Argentina enroute to Santiago, Chile on August 2, 1947.

Star Dust’s final Morse code transmission to Santiago airport, S T E N D E C, was received by the control tower four minutes prior to its planned landing and repeated twice:

… – . -. -.. . -.-.

 

… – . -. -.. . -.-.

 

The Morse transmission sounded just like this:

 

Star Dust — like Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 and Argentina’s Cadet Flight — was never heard from again.

And what does S T E N D E C mean? No one knew then, no one knows now.

Mas…BSAA airliner over Andes transmits ‘S T E N D E C’ in Morse, vanishes

Pocho Ocho weird geographic chingaderas you probably never heard of

googlestraitPOCHO’s Comic Saenz wasn’t 100% sure where the Crimean Peninsula was on a map until last week, when Russia grabbed it, and he had no clue about the Strait of Malacca, where that Malaysian Airlines flight may have disappeared.

He had to look this stuff up on the Internets (photo), and maybe you did too.

That’s when we realized our geographical memory banks — and yours — might need a little shot of phresh knowledge, like this list of the Pocho Ocho Weird Geographical Chingaderas You Probably Never Heard Of:

8. Lake Tiacaca. Nowhere near the Andes, this stinky mess was discovered in your Aunt Anna’s bathroom after that thing with the sewer pipes.

7. The Chicano Triangle. This tortilla-chip-shaped segment of Southern California goes from Oxnard to San Diego to Indio. Many (traditionally) black and (predominantly) white neighborhoods formerly located in this area have disappeared from demographers’ charts.

6. The Straights of Esai. These large ribbed rock formations just north of Malibu bring ALL the boys to the yard.

Mas…Pocho Ocho weird geographic chingaderas you probably never heard of