1947 BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust accident
On 2 August 1947, Star Dust, a British South American Airways (BSAA) Avro Lancastrian airliner on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile, crashed into Mount Tupungato in the Argentine Andes. An extensive search operation failed to locate the wreckage, despite covering the area of the crash site. The fate of the aircraft and its occupants remained unknown for over fifty years, giving rise to various conspiracy theories about its disappearance.
BSAA Lancastrian 3 G-AGWH painted as Star Dust | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 2 August 1947 |
| Summary | Controlled flight into terrain |
| Site | Mount Tupungato, Argentina 33°22′15″S 69°45′40″W |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Avro Lancastrian |
| Operator | British South American Airways |
| Registration | G-AGWH |
| Flight origin | Morón Airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Destination | Los Cerrillos Airport, Santiago, Chile |
| Occupants | 11 |
| Passengers | 6 |
| Crew | 5 |
| Fatalities | 11 |
| Survivors | 0 |
In the late 1990s, pieces of wreckage from the missing aircraft began to emerge from the glacial ice. It is now believed that the crew became confused as to their exact location while flying at high altitudes through the (then poorly understood) jet stream. Mistakenly believing they had already cleared the mountain tops, they started their descent when they were in fact still behind cloud-covered peaks. Star Dust crashed into Mount Tupungato, killing all aboard and burying itself in snow and ice.
The last word in Star Dust's final Morse code transmission to Santiago airport, "STENDEC", was received by the airport control tower four minutes before its planned landing and repeated twice; it has never been satisfactorily explained.