STARDUST IN MY EYES

By F. G. Helmke

  

It’s been over a decade since this event was reported, yet the following story of a commercial airplane that mysteriously disappeared while on a routine flight still fascinates me:

"It was 1947. A British airliner called Star Dust had taken off across South America. It should have taken less than four hours for the passenger flight from Buenos Aires in Argentina to the Chilean capital Santiago. The route was across the Andes Mountains, the captain and his first and second officers were experienced pilots with Royal Air Force combat experience during World War II, and the aircraft model—an Avro Lancastrian—was perfectly suited for the task. Reliable men, excellent machines.

Star Dust radioed its position at 5 PM while near Mendoza. The ground was still visible, but the mountains were shrouded by clouds. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. At 5.33 PM the pilot contacted air traffic control in Santiago, confirming the flight would arrive in just four minutes. Then … silence. The plane simply disappeared.

"For years, no wreckage was found, and there was no indication—no clue at all—of what had happened to Star Dust, the five crew, or the six passengers. The incident remained a mystery for over 50 years. Then on a glacier below Mount Tupangato, one of the biggest mountains in the Andes, the wreckage was finally found. The plane had not been outside Santiago, as the pilot had believed, but 50 miles away, still on the wrong side of the mountains.   

"What had gone wrong? Investigators now believe they know the answers. Star Dust had told air traffic control that it intended to climb to 24,000 ft (about 7,300 m) in order to avoid the bad weather. This seemed a safe and sensible decision. Little did they know that they were about to encounter an invisible meteorological phenomenon.

"The jet stream is a powerful, high-altitude wind that blows at speeds in excess of 160 km an hour from west to east around the earth. However, it only develops above the normal weather systems, and in 1947 very few planes flew high enough to encounter the jet stream, so the phenomenon was still largely unknown. BBC reports that as Stardust climbed and began to enter the jet stream it slowed down dramatically, but the crew had no knowledge of this.

"The jet stream’s effect was devastating. The pilot, Reginald Cook, was confident that the Andes were well behind them and began the descent. He was sure that when Stardust emerged from the clouds it would be above Santiago Airport. But in fact they were descending straight towards Mount Tupangato which was still invisible in the clouds ahead. Disaster was seconds away. Hopelessly off course Stardust flew straight into the cloud-covered glacier.

"It’s believed that the plane crashed into a vertical wall of ice, causing an avalanche which immediately swallowed it into the glacier, causing it to vanish from sight. Over the decades, the wreckage—inside the glacier—travelled slowly downhill toward the lower rock-covered section. And there, where the glacier melts, Star Dust finally became visible once again, 50 years later.

"Examination of the wreckage indicated that the plane was in perfect working order. It was apparently flying normally right up to that final moment when it crashed head-on into the glacier. There is no blame attached to the Star Dust crew. No matter how professional, competent, and experienced they were, they had no way of knowing that the jet stream was slowing them down, destroying all their navigational calculations." 

This story reminds me of the time I was cooking lentils in a pressure cooker. I had left some space at the top so they could expand, that was the method I’ve always used when cooking beans. While the lentils cooked, I was working outside in the garden, when I suddenly heard what sounded like a car crash. The pressure cooker had exploded, devastating our stove and covering the floor, walls, and ceiling with lentils. I now know that lentils expand a fair bit more than beans, just as modern airline pilots now know about the jet stream. 

How easy it is to rely on logical thinking and our own self-confidence! So often we don’t acknowledge that we don’t know half as much as we think we do. We just can’t foresee the future. In so many respects we are actually walking in the dark.

But we can avoid a crash, because we are also born with the ability to connect with an all-knowing God. Even when all is totally dark and we can’t see anything, all it takes for us to see the whole picture is a short stroke of lightning. Likewise by touching God for a moment we can make sure we are going the right way. We don’t have to walk in darkness, for Jesus assures us, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”[John 8:12]