Personally I think it was more down to the fact that as an airline this was really pushing the technology of the time period to the limit long multi-stop flights largely over water with the odd mountain range thrown in for fun! It reminds me of a saying I once heard "while one might be capable to do something, it doesn't always mean that it is prudent to do so"
@@stanislavkostarnov2157 I've always liked the simpler version of the same sentiment: "Just because you could, doesn't mean you should." I think that gem of wisdom could be applicable to many aspects of life.
@@daviddunsmore103 my point was... its not like they could, not consistently at least, they did once, twice... but that does not mean they "could" consistently.
Great video. As a resident on the Azores, I took a keen interest on the disappearance of Star Tiger and even penned some stuff about it. You really created a simple and effective way to explain what happened. Congratulations.
In 1947, when I was 5 years old, I flew with my parents from Montevideo to London on a BSAA Avro York. I remember wanting to get out of the plane as it revved the engines for takeoff, the noise was unbearable. The trip took more than 24 hours, with stops at Rio, Natal, Dakar and Lisbon before landing in London.
Miguel, Perhaps my Father was in the flying crew of your trip in 1947 as he flew with BSAA after WW2 having served in bomber command. As a boy he used to fascinate me with his tales of crossing the Atlantic in the Yorks and Lancastrians and of course the Andes when flying over to Santiago de Chile. He also talked of the North Atlantic flights and the marathons over water when on the Azores to Bermuda leg. In fact he flew Star Tiger just a week or so before it departed on its fateful flight. A close run thing! Great video thank you for posting and opening up the story of the pioneering age of commercial aviation. Kid regards. Peter Daisley Worrall
Great video. I was reading about the Argentinian army expedition to the site of Star Dust's wreckage, and the human remains found. They held an impromptu memorial service at the site - this army that had faced us in the Falklands. Gallantry and humanity on their part.
@@johnturnbull3361 unfortunately it'll never stop. War is as much a human desire as breath. It's just in our nature. It's unfortunate but it is what it is.
@@brt-jn7kg Sadly so true! As our climate emergency worsens and the human overpopulation crisis continues to increase, we're only going to see more conflicts as we inevitably fight with ever more urgency over the diminishing scraps of our natural resources to prolong the survival of our ever smaller groups of survivors. Ironically, the very international cooperation that we desperately need in order to fight climate change and global habitat loss will fall by the wayside as the needs of individuals and families are predictably put above all else.
@@daviddunsmore103 Congratulations for almost justifying a connection between the fate of an ill-starred air transport operation in the late 1940s, which led to the loss of many lives, and your pipe-dream of the demise of human life on the planet.
It was dangerous routes for the technology avaiöable at the time. Things like jet streams was barely known, much less mapped with any degree of accuracy. These airliners tended to go through heavy weather which didnt help either. Weather radar and similar helpfull tools where decades away. Uts amazing they didnt loose more planes than they did all considered.
@@geocachingwomble i mean, yeah theres MH370 but it was 1 of hundreds or thousands of flights that took that flight path. So i'd consider 1 in hundreds still to be rare
The best explanation I saw for Star Ariel came from another Tudor pilot, they suffered from notoriously unreliable heaters which actually played a part in the plane being rejected by BOAC, and this pilot reported that the heaters often failed and could spill hot oil into the plane, risking a fire. The theory goes that Star Ariel caught fire over the ocean due to the heater, and it couldn’t transmit a distress call due to the premature radio switch, so it crashed into the ocean without anyone realising.
@@javiergilvidal1558 Because it was a relatively small plane in a very big ocean in an era where searching for wreckage was even harder than it is today. It can take years to find the wreckage of a large modern airliner with modern techology, it would've been near impossible back then.
Thanks a lot, very well researched and well written video. BSAA's looks like a chilling tale of heroism struggling with the technological limitations of the times and a dark triumph of adventureism over better judgement. But at least the drinks were free then.
Well done, Ruairidh. Over the years, I'd picked up bits and pieces about the history of BSAA and it's supposed "curse." I appreciate your putting together this straightforward, non-sensational video and posting it for us. Thinking in terms of much more sophisticated navigation and communications equipment, I can't help but wonder the difference that even ten years might have made for the airline --- but by then, I'm guessing that it might have been absorbed into BOAC.
In reading Ernest K. Gann's book, "Fate is the Hunter" it's easy to see how these old airliners failed to make their destinations. These old airships were full of gremlins, and radio communications were still pretty primitive by modern standards.
Whilst the Lancastrian was a lash-up of the old Lancaster, the Tudor was, for the time, a modern plane, albeit of old technology. The true failure was in the navigation techniques of the time, relying on astral navigation and dead reckoning. The decision to fly long trans-oceanic legs was bold, not to say plain foolhardy and pushed the envelope too far, given the limited fuel carried by these flights.
As an aircraft mechanic, the first time I read the bit about crash investigators never writing off an accident as bad luck, and admitting to only themselves that an unrecognizable genie urinates on the pillar of science, that got me good. The birds I work on are full of gremlins. You'll sometimes chase wires for a week to determine a root cause for some petty recurring malfunction that you can't duplicate on the ground.
An excellent video about BSAA. In recent years the design of the Tudor's heating and ventilating system has been suspected of causing a fire or explosion.
This airline is fascinating to me, but all 3 of its mysteries aren’t too hard to explain, although it’s fun how long they’ve lasted as mostly unexplained. Tiger and Ariel most likely just ran out of fuel after being blown off course, or exploded due to faulty heaters, and one of them might’ve crashed into the water due to low altitude. Star Dust struck a mountain after starting its descent too early due to the jet stream while the clouds covered the mountains, with Stendec most likely being a mistakenly read version of “STR DEC” (starting descent) or the airport’s callsign. But nevertheless, this is an amazing video! It was well made with good photos and sources and was an interesting watch.
Yes, there´s nothing "supernatural" about Star Dust, and most probably about the Tudors either, but why was no wreckage ever found of the latter two? My two cents: Britain, a WW2 "winner" only on paper, but in truth a big-time loser, was unduly messing and meddling into the USA´s backyard, and taking for her lucrative air services the Yanks wanted for themselves -and using an all-British airliner to boot! Yankee fighters brought the Tudors down, and the USN "search & rescue missions" were dispatched to clean off the debris and report the British planes had "mysteriously disappeared". The Tudor sank into discredit after that (even if it performed very well in the Berlin Airlift), and BSAA just disappeared, the Caribbean services being taken over by yankee airlines. Qui prodest?
Hi Ruairidh. Thank you for putting together this video. I have a particular interest in BSAA as the co-author of 'Fly With The Stars' (history of BSAA) and the son of a former BSAA employee. Ian Ottaway
Thank you and really interesting and intriguing although I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t spiritual/extra terrestrial. Such rudimentary long range navigation techniques, meteorological forecasting and piston engines had way more chance of downing aircraft. I think they were extremely brave aviators, crossing the ITCZ at 2000’ is eye opening. Thank you for producing this video!
Add navigation error and failure to follow protocol when lost, at least in the case of flight 19, into the mix. The aviators may have been brave, but they were also error-prone and especially so in the case of BSAA. Their passengers were foolhardy, but didn't know it.
Don't discount long range celestial navigation. This was its heyday. Fred Noonan got Amelia to Gardner Island after they couldn't find Howland in the glare back in '38. That said, all the other factors cited in the thread are generally worthy, though they seemed to be tinged with a bit of "judging history against modern standards."
I'm not an aviation expert, just a lifelong enthusiast. I've often read that one of the issues with BSAA was that it was headed by Donald Bennett, former AOC 8 Group, Bomber Command - the famous Pathfinders. His leadership style was very much 'press on' and many of his aircrew were former bomber pilots, young and used to wartime exigencies. This, combined with truly inadequate aircraft, (the Tudor was truly awful), was a recipe for disaster. Incidentally, there is a theory that the passenger heating system on the Tudor, basically a burner drawing fuel from the aircraft tanks, was a possible culprit.
You are not wrong about the perils of crossing the ITCZ at two thousand feet altitude, Ma'am. And it's almost as bad at twenty thousand! ;) Even subsonic-jet cruising altitudes can be problematic, with the tops sometimes exceeding fifty thousand feet. Wx radar is a must, but the gaps between the cells can close just before you get there, and turning round at 480 kt is not a practical option...
Nicely put together, thanks. As someone comments below, however, it would have been worth mentioning the key flight operations rôle of Don Bennett (former head of the RAF Pathfinder force), who had been responsible for recruiting most of the ex-RAF pilots in BSAA. Another omission is the airline's first fatal accident. This was to the Avro York, G-AHEW, immediately after a heavily-laden, night take-off from Bathurst on 7/9/46. (8 days earlier, a Lancastrian had been written off in a non-fatal landing accident at the same airfield.) The initial accident investigation into the York accident was conducted by Don Bennett himself, who suspected an engine malfunction. However, the official investigation later found no technical failure and concluded that the captain may have rotated the York into the air at too low an airspeed, resulting in its failure to climb. A day earlier, he had flown to Bathurst in a Lancastrian, a lighter aeroplane with a better power-to-weight ratio, and had never flown a York at a high take-off weight. Hope you don't mind me pointing out also that today's phonetic alphabet was not in use in the late 1940s: "Golf Alpha Golf Whiskey Hotel", would probably have read "George Able George William How." For a fictitious but authentic insight into this type of operation across the Atlantic, David Beatty's novel, "The Heart of the Storm", is a great read.
I happen to have a tiny fragment from _Star Dust_ encased in Lucite sat about ten feet from where I am typing this - gifted to me by my dad after he was handed it by someone from the Argentine Air Force he spoke to when out there on business for Her Majesty. Its an unremarkable bit of metal about the size of my thumbnail, but every year on the day of the crash it will fall off the shelf it is on
My father was a radio officer with BSAA in 1947 and he, my mother and I were posted to Nassau for a 3 year stint. However, those crashes had us returning to the UK after 18months where my dad was transferred to BOAC. There is an excellent book abt BSAA by Susan & Ian Ottaway. I'm not sure if you mentioned that the airline was founded by Pathfinder Don Bennett?
A nasty and dangerous aircraft which should never have been allowed to carry passengers. An early Tudor crash killed the designer Roy Chadwick. A few years later BSAA's chief pilot went on record as saying he had no confidence in its engines or systems. In the mid 1950s Freddie Laker's company Air Charter made some success of using Tudors as freighters but they also had a couple of bad accidents and the Tudor last flew in 1959.
@@davebarclay4429 Can't blame the Tudor for the Chadwick crash. Somebody rigged the ailerons incorrectly. Poor pre-flight inspection. True, it wasn't a very good plane, though.
@Dave Barclay, BOAC, I think, may have been forewarned about the Tudor's shortcomings and rejected it in favor of American-built aircraft on its trans-Atlantic services before the Bristol Britannia and de Havilland Comet 4 came along.
@@johneddy908 In those days BOAC was effectively a government department rather than an independent airline and they were under pressure to support the British aviation industry. Despite that the Ministry of Aviation allowed them to cancel their order for Tudors and buy Canadair Argonauts instead, probably one of he best decisions BOAC made and an eloquent comment on just how poor the Tudor was.
If anyone wants to know more about the Star Dust crash, can I reocmmend Jay Rayner's (yes - the restaurant critic) Star Dust Falling which gives a lot of detail about the crew and passengers as well as the deeply-troubled BSAA itself. Great book.
The Avro Tudor was doomed from the beginning. It was seen as little more than a pressurized DC-4 with a DC-3 undercarriage. Worst of all, its Rolls-Royce Merlin supercharged V12s were very noisy and weren't really meant for use in commercial airliners, even though the TCA/Air Canada and BOAC Canadair North Stars had special "crossover" exhausts which reduced noise somewhat. It's no wonder that BOAC rejected the Tudor and ordered Boeing Stratorcruisers and Lockheed Constellations for trans-Atlantic services prior to the Bristol Britannia turboprop and de Havilland Comet 4 pure-jet aircraft.
The leader of the five Avengers had been in trouble being unable to navigate and was flying east not west as he insisted. Over six thousand ships have sunk around Britten's coast. Maybe we call that the Bull**it triangle. Some have been said to have been taken by French UFOs.
When I worked for Shell, and flew to a lot of places, we called them Dan Dare, because of this rather undeserved reputation. Then there was Australia's Ansett ANA - according to the Aussies themselves 'Chance it with Ansett'. ;)
Dodgy business, flying. I spent over three years working for an airline in the 60s. We had one go down on Mt Canigou in the Pyrenees and another in Stockport.
I read an article quoting several ex-BSAA pilots & crew .... they didn't like the Tudor and said the hydraulics and heater were extremely dangerous - according to Capt. Peter Duffey the heater used kerosene that was dripped on a hot tube to warm the cabin, and it was dangerously close to the hydraulic lines - a fuel vapor explosion or fire could have easily blown up Star Tiger/Star Ariel, and maybe the searchers just didn't notice the bits of floating wreckage that were left.
My uncle flew for BSAA. He left after a disagreement with the CEO over safety standards, saying that the airline was being run without proper safety guidelines.
To this day there are no direct flights from Asia to South America for some of the reasons that these planes were lost . There is no radar coverage over the south Atlantic due to there being no place to base them an very little traffic to monitor . Also the Caribbean being more third Wold than 1st does not have state of the art tracking systems or search and rescue ability . So in those days your first knowledge of a plane being missing is it doesn't show up at the airport when it is supposed to , this doesn't give search and rescue much to go on . The fact we still don't do this tells the story .
I'm pretty sure that it's got much more to do with the fact that there's not enough demand for tickets on potential routes between Asia and South America, at least for direct flights. One can always change planes at a selection of major hub airports to get from practically anywhere to practically anywhere else, in often as little as two flights nowadays. Lack of radar on the ground doesn't deter thousands of flights a day from crossing vast stretches of oceans and zooming over polar routes. Today, we have real time position tracking via satellite, so in the vanishingly remote prospect of an aircraft going missing by accident, searchers would have the aircraft's last position available up until the moment that it stopped transmitting. Things have changed a lot since Amelia Earhart went missing in 1937, LOL!
Whilst working in the British aircraft industry in the 1960’s it was said that the Avro Tudor crashes were due to it having an aerodynamic peculiarity which under certain circumstances caused a nose up attitude which could not be corrected & graduslly became worse until the aircraft stalled & crashed.
mmm .. Centre of Lift problem that could get worse with rising altitude and diminishing horizontal stability authority. Could this phenomenon explain the Andes crash?
May I recommend the book "The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved by Larry Kusche. There is a chapter about these aircraft disappearances and the possible causes.
@@royfearn4345 Even a failed engine can be fatal. Although the pane can still fly OK it will use more fuel especially if the dead prop can't be feathered.
There was a little rhyme at that time: BOAC will take good care of you, BEA will get you there and back again, BSAA will inform your next of kin. This was the result of: BOAC lost 2.3 passengers per 100 million miles. All the North American carriers together lost 3.78 passengers per 100 million miles, BEA had a totally clean slate, BSAA lost 61.6 passengers per 100 million miles.
Sometimes one just cannot catch a break. Very good history on the airline. A lot of $ lost and lives too. Long range commercial transport needs special aircraft and the Lancaster wasn't it.
I like how you start and finish your videos. No pomp and ceremony. And no - silly - 'don't forget to like, subscribe and blah blah blah'. Just start it and finish it. ☮
Great, interesting documentary on the loss of aircraft. The narration has been spoken far too fast to be comfortably comprehended. Other than that, five stars for the whole production.
Not being an expert aviator, I can only conclude that these planes that crashed into these mountains did not have radar detection for objects in their path!
@@paulkirkland3263 I've often wondered how did they navigate around or above these Mts. at night unless they knew the heights and based that on their altimeters
@@ralphsanchico2452 They knew the height of the mountains along their route, and so flew above them, as you correctly state. The problem for Star Dust was as explained in the video - based on elapsed time, and average speed, they assumed they were well clear of the Andes and able to descend into Santiago. What they did not know was that high altitude wind, known as the jet stream , had been slowing their progress, and while the cockpit instruments were showing the expected indicated air speed, the actual speed across the ground was much reduced. Consequently, they weren't as far west as they thought they were - and descended into the mountains, rather than to the west of them. That is the assumption, anyway. Very sad.
For those who might be interested Charles Lindbergh ran into problems when he flew back from I guess Mexico City to this Compass was going in circles until they got close to Florida
Rather similar to what may have happened to Malaysian MH380....off route and fuel exhaustion.At least we know what brought down MH17 but who fired the missle remains a mystery.The Bermuda Triangle seems to have largely manufactured by paper back writer Charles Berliz.
Does anyone know why the Avro Tudor turned out to be such a turkey? Avro had a long history of making great planes and the Tudor was designed by one of their finest - Ray Chadwick. Yet, the Tudor was turned down by BOAC, Qantas, South African Airways and the Australian military. Obviously it was far inferior to the DC-4 and the Constellation, but how had one of the UK's largest plane builders fallen so far behind the Americans and produced something with a less than enviable safety record?
Those were the early days of commercial aviation and I imagine that at that time there were many experienced ex- RAF aircrew ( pilots, navigators and flight engineers ) involved in flying these aircraft, so I doubt professional capability or experience is in question here. Obviously, some mistakes were made but I would be more inclined to look at the age and quality of the aircraft used. Maintenance regulations were not as stringent as they are now and some of those aircraft would have been tired structurally.
@@CanadairCL44 Avro Tudors and Lancastrians were brand new at the time, the age of the planes does not figure in the equation. I agree with OP that it was down to poor training and poor selection criteria for air crews. One suspects that postwar, the best crews in the UK would have been swept up by BOAC. Major airlines of the day were flying similar and sometimes longer routes, including over the Andes and open ocean, without much drama.
And, you might suggest, the senior management; the 'press on at all costs' mindset of highly decorated military aviators was not necessarily entirely compatible with the 'safety above all' mindset of civil aviation
An Avro Tudor was lost whilst trying to land at Llandow Airfield in the 1950's apparently as it was coming in to land the nose suddenly pitched up and it stalled and fell to the ground I don't think there were any survivors, also the designer of The Tudor was killed during a test flight due to incorrectly coupled aileron cables, not a great record really!!!
Hello, I had the pleasure of passengering on Bee Wee in the Caribbean on the 23rd Feb 1985 flight BW 419 Barbados to Port of Spain whilst working for BA. Can't remember the aircraft, but wonderful memories of the places and people. It is missed
@@jimtaylor294 I'm thinking about metallurgy which was also a factor with the Comet. Especially skin thickness combined with metal fatigue which wasn't ireally nvesstigated until the Comet hit the tank....
@@jimtaylor294 that mitigates the risk but the comet cracks I think started not at the side windows. The mistake was at manufacturing as they punched instead of drilled holes
@@johnpinckney4979 Kind of. The Comet I had been throughly tested prior to service entry by the standards of the time; and because only a handful of non-commercial aircraft had been up that high before, it wasn't a known issue. An Electron Microscope would have identified the issues with the manufacturing process (punching rivets instead of drilling) and that the airframe was being overstressed in other areas; but this was brand new technology at the time, that few if any aircraft companies possessed (a bit like Car Companies & Wind Tunnels). The skin thickness didn't help the issue (done that way to reduce airframe weight), but the same issues would have doomed a thicker skinned airframe too.
@@Dilley_G45 Aye there was that (the standard visual inspection means at the time couldn't see the cracks around the rivet holes), and yes at least one Comet I was lost to cracking that started at the topside radio antenna. The tank test that identified the problem though focused on the windows, which was reasonable as the airframe tested ruptured there. With the Tudor it would require checking AV Roe's records and one of the airframes to confirm if the riveting was done in such a way as deHavilland.
With the benefit of hindsight, the Avro Tudor was not a good aircraft. Roy Chadwick, a very talented designer, responsible for the Anson and the Lancaster, was killed in a Tudor. It slightly resembled the HP Hastings, itself somewhat trouble-prone. Most regrettably, immediate post-war aircraft types seemed to lag far behind US counterparts. The DH104, Dove, was an exception, followed by the DH114, Heron. But they were just feeder-liners. With outdated, heavy, Gypsy engines. The AS Ambassador, & HP Herald were very good a/c, but from what I’ve been able to glean, hamstrung by the governments of the time. The Viscount was also very successful, but hardly a transatlantic airliner. The US were rather better at building long range aeroplanes, and benefitting from British disasters and research.
Given the known limitations of long range radio communication devices of the period, why didn't anyone thought to post picket ships along the route in order to maintain constant contact with the transatlantic flights? Even a small 2 man ship at the midpoint would had been helpful and also allow the onboard navigator of the airline to get a fix and correct for course deviations.
It would be so much easier on a great number of our ears if you spoke more slowly ... never mind the short attention span folk ... they're too dim to appreciate this video fully.
Six passengers? SIX passengers? No wonder the British government nationalized the airline industry, you don't fly a big-ass four-engine gas-guzzling aircraft with just SIX passengers! Sheeesh!!
Personally I think it was more down to the fact that as an airline this was really pushing the technology of the time period to the limit long multi-stop flights largely over water with the odd mountain range thrown in for fun!
It reminds me of a saying I once heard "while one might be capable to do something, it doesn't always mean that it is prudent to do so"
Yes, an Air Bridge Too Far.
@@rodchallis8031 more like:
ones provenness of doing something once, does not make certain such capability as to make such achievement a habit.
@@stanislavkostarnov2157 I've always liked the simpler version of the same sentiment:
"Just because you could, doesn't mean you should."
I think that gem of wisdom could be applicable to many aspects of life.
@@daviddunsmore103 my point was... its not like they could, not consistently at least, they did once, twice... but that does not mean they "could" consistently.
Very true. Very risky undertaking for planes and their capabilities of the time.
Great video. As a resident on the Azores, I took a keen interest on the disappearance of Star Tiger and even penned some stuff about it. You really created a simple and effective way to explain what happened. Congratulations.
Stendec?
@@brt-jn7kg No, the Stendec was "Star Dust"
In 1947, when I was 5 years old, I flew with my parents from Montevideo to London on a BSAA Avro York. I remember wanting to get out of the plane as it revved the engines for takeoff, the noise was unbearable. The trip took more than 24 hours, with stops at Rio, Natal, Dakar and Lisbon before landing in London.
Miguel, Perhaps my Father was in the flying crew of your trip in 1947 as he flew with BSAA after WW2 having served in bomber command. As a boy he used to fascinate me with his tales of crossing the Atlantic in the Yorks and Lancastrians and of course the Andes when flying over to Santiago de Chile. He also talked of the North Atlantic flights and the marathons over water when on the Azores to Bermuda leg. In fact he flew Star Tiger just a week or so before it departed on its fateful flight. A close run thing!
Great video thank you for posting and opening up the story of the pioneering age of commercial aviation. Kid regards. Peter Daisley Worrall
Great video. I was reading about the Argentinian army expedition to the site of Star Dust's wreckage, and the human remains found. They held an impromptu memorial service at the site - this army that had faced us in the Falklands. Gallantry and humanity on their part.
Well spoken Paul! War is wrong and we must all come together and rid the planet of this ghastly waste of life and destruction ? regards J.T. at 73 !
@@johnturnbull3361 Thank you John, and I agree.
@@johnturnbull3361 unfortunately it'll never stop. War is as much a human desire as breath. It's just in our nature. It's unfortunate but it is what it is.
@@brt-jn7kg Sadly so true!
As our climate emergency worsens and the human overpopulation crisis continues to increase, we're only going to see more conflicts as we inevitably fight with ever more urgency over the diminishing scraps of our natural resources to prolong the survival of our ever smaller groups of survivors.
Ironically, the very international cooperation that we desperately need in order to fight climate change and global habitat loss will fall by the wayside as the needs of individuals and families are predictably put above all else.
@@daviddunsmore103 Congratulations for almost justifying a connection between the fate of an ill-starred air transport operation in the late 1940s, which led to the loss of many lives, and your pipe-dream of the demise of human life on the planet.
It was dangerous routes for the technology avaiöable at the time. Things like jet streams was barely known, much less mapped with any degree of accuracy. These airliners tended to go through heavy weather which didnt help either. Weather radar and similar helpfull tools where decades away. Uts amazing they didnt loose more planes than they did all considered.
I really enjoyed these. The presentation reminds me of an old radio show, no music, just facts.
You sir, need more recognition. Thankyou for the work you put into these videos.
We've made such advances in avionics and navigation packages that these type of disappearances are rare today. Thank goodness!
Have you heard of MH370? We never found that one
@@geocachingwomble i mean, yeah theres MH370 but it was 1 of hundreds or thousands of flights that took that flight path. So i'd consider 1 in hundreds still to be rare
@@geocachingwomble Yes, a rare example you spoon
Zeke that proves that there is something about MH 370 that is not in the useless mainstream media
MH 370 crashed in the Ukraine under its real identity.
The best explanation I saw for Star Ariel came from another Tudor pilot, they suffered from notoriously unreliable heaters which actually played a part in the plane being rejected by BOAC, and this pilot reported that the heaters often failed and could spill hot oil into the plane, risking a fire. The theory goes that Star Ariel caught fire over the ocean due to the heater, and it couldn’t transmit a distress call due to the premature radio switch, so it crashed into the ocean without anyone realising.
Why do you think no wreckage was ever found?
@@javiergilvidal1558 Because it was a relatively small plane in a very big ocean in an era where searching for wreckage was even harder than it is today. It can take years to find the wreckage of a large modern airliner with modern techology, it would've been near impossible back then.
@@shioyoutube9041 Maybe you´re right
Thanks a lot, very well researched and well written video. BSAA's looks like a chilling tale of heroism struggling with the technological limitations of the times and a dark triumph of adventureism over better judgement. But at least the drinks were free then.
Well done, Ruairidh. Over the years, I'd picked up bits and pieces about the history of BSAA and it's supposed "curse." I appreciate your putting together this straightforward, non-sensational video and posting it for us. Thinking in terms of much more sophisticated navigation and communications equipment, I can't help but wonder the difference that even ten years might have made for the airline --- but by then, I'm guessing that it might have been absorbed into BOAC.
In reading Ernest K. Gann's book, "Fate is the Hunter" it's easy to see how these old airliners failed to make their destinations. These old airships were full of gremlins, and radio communications were still pretty primitive by modern standards.
Whilst the Lancastrian was a lash-up of the old Lancaster, the Tudor was, for the time, a modern plane, albeit of old technology. The true failure was in the navigation techniques of the time, relying on astral navigation and dead reckoning. The decision to fly long trans-oceanic legs was bold, not to say plain foolhardy and pushed the envelope too far, given the limited fuel carried by these flights.
As an aircraft mechanic, the first time I read the bit about crash investigators never writing off an accident as bad luck, and admitting to only themselves that an unrecognizable genie urinates on the pillar of science, that got me good.
The birds I work on are full of gremlins. You'll sometimes chase wires for a week to determine a root cause for some petty recurring malfunction that you can't duplicate on the ground.
the movie was fun, if only for the ridiculous model plane and crash scenes
An excellent video about BSAA.
In recent years the design of the Tudor's heating and ventilating system has been suspected of causing a fire or explosion.
The Bermuda Triangle UFO and supernatural theories are "largely dismissed"?
Generous!
100% dismissed!
Dismissed or covered up by the men in black along with members of the Jewish Space Laser Program!? lol
This airline is fascinating to me, but all 3 of its mysteries aren’t too hard to explain, although it’s fun how long they’ve lasted as mostly unexplained. Tiger and Ariel most likely just ran out of fuel after being blown off course, or exploded due to faulty heaters, and one of them might’ve crashed into the water due to low altitude. Star Dust struck a mountain after starting its descent too early due to the jet stream while the clouds covered the mountains, with Stendec most likely being a mistakenly read version of “STR DEC” (starting descent) or the airport’s callsign.
But nevertheless, this is an amazing video! It was well made with good photos and sources and was an interesting watch.
Yes, there´s nothing "supernatural" about Star Dust, and most probably about the Tudors either, but why was no wreckage ever found of the latter two? My two cents: Britain, a WW2 "winner" only on paper, but in truth a big-time loser, was unduly messing and meddling into the USA´s backyard, and taking for her lucrative air services the Yanks wanted for themselves -and using an all-British airliner to boot! Yankee fighters brought the Tudors down, and the USN "search & rescue missions" were dispatched to clean off the debris and report the British planes had "mysteriously disappeared". The Tudor sank into discredit after that (even if it performed very well in the Berlin Airlift), and BSAA just disappeared, the Caribbean services being taken over by yankee airlines. Qui prodest?
Hi Ruairidh. Thank you for putting together this video. I have a particular interest in BSAA as the co-author of 'Fly With The Stars' (history of BSAA) and the son of a former BSAA employee. Ian Ottaway
Thank you and really interesting and intriguing although I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t spiritual/extra terrestrial. Such rudimentary long range navigation techniques, meteorological forecasting and piston engines had way more chance of downing aircraft. I think they were extremely brave aviators, crossing the ITCZ at 2000’ is eye opening. Thank you for producing this video!
Add navigation error and failure to follow protocol when lost, at least in the case of flight 19, into the mix. The aviators may have been brave, but they were also error-prone and especially so in the case of BSAA. Their passengers were foolhardy, but didn't know it.
Don't discount long range celestial navigation. This was its heyday. Fred Noonan got Amelia to Gardner Island after they couldn't find Howland in the glare back in '38.
That said, all the other factors cited in the thread are generally worthy, though they seemed to be tinged with a bit of "judging history against modern standards."
@@77thTrombone Technically 1937, but agreed on your other points.
I'm not an aviation expert, just a lifelong enthusiast. I've often read that one of the issues with BSAA was that it was headed by Donald Bennett, former AOC 8 Group, Bomber Command - the famous Pathfinders. His leadership style was very much 'press on' and many of his aircrew were former bomber pilots, young and used to wartime exigencies. This, combined with truly inadequate aircraft, (the Tudor was truly awful), was a recipe for disaster. Incidentally, there is a theory that the passenger heating system on the Tudor, basically a burner drawing fuel from the aircraft tanks, was a possible culprit.
You are not wrong about the perils of crossing the ITCZ at two thousand feet altitude, Ma'am. And it's almost as bad at twenty thousand! ;)
Even subsonic-jet cruising altitudes can be problematic, with the tops sometimes exceeding fifty thousand feet. Wx radar is a must, but the gaps between the cells can close just before you get there, and turning round at 480 kt is not a practical option...
I adore these, a real weekend treat thanks *
Glad I subscribed this guy knows his facts. Fascinating look back into that very experimental era. Good show thanks!
Nicely put together, thanks. As someone comments below, however, it would have been worth mentioning the key flight operations rôle of Don Bennett (former head of the RAF Pathfinder force), who had been responsible for recruiting most of the ex-RAF pilots in BSAA.
Another omission is the airline's first fatal accident. This was to the Avro York, G-AHEW, immediately after a heavily-laden, night take-off from Bathurst on 7/9/46. (8 days earlier, a Lancastrian had been written off in a non-fatal landing accident at the same airfield.) The initial accident investigation into the York accident was conducted by Don Bennett himself, who suspected an engine malfunction. However, the official investigation later found no technical failure and concluded that the captain may have rotated the York into the air at too low an airspeed, resulting in its failure to climb. A day earlier, he had flown to Bathurst in a Lancastrian, a lighter aeroplane with a better power-to-weight ratio, and had never flown a York at a high take-off weight.
Hope you don't mind me pointing out also that today's phonetic alphabet was not in use in the late 1940s: "Golf Alpha Golf Whiskey Hotel", would probably have read "George Able George William How."
For a fictitious but authentic insight into this type of operation across the Atlantic, David Beatty's novel, "The Heart of the Storm", is a great read.
I happen to have a tiny fragment from _Star Dust_ encased in Lucite sat about ten feet from where I am typing this - gifted to me by my dad after he was handed it by someone from the Argentine Air Force he spoke to when out there on business for Her Majesty. Its an unremarkable bit of metal about the size of my thumbnail, but every year on the day of the crash it will fall off the shelf it is on
so things do bump in the middle of the night, thanks
Hmmmmm...
That was rather good....much appreciated
My father was a radio officer with BSAA in 1947 and he, my mother and I were posted to Nassau for a 3 year stint. However, those crashes had us returning to the UK after 18months where my dad was transferred to BOAC. There is an excellent book abt BSAA by Susan & Ian Ottaway.
I'm not sure if you mentioned that the airline was founded by Pathfinder Don Bennett?
Great video. The Avro Tudor is a strange looking beast.
One fuselage ended up on a caravan park on the east coast, but I can't remember exactly where!
A nasty and dangerous aircraft which should never have been allowed to carry passengers. An early Tudor crash killed the designer Roy Chadwick. A few years later BSAA's chief pilot went on record as saying he had no confidence in its engines or systems. In the mid 1950s Freddie Laker's company Air Charter made some success of using Tudors as freighters but they also had a couple of bad accidents and the Tudor last flew in 1959.
@@davebarclay4429 Can't blame the Tudor for the Chadwick crash. Somebody rigged the ailerons incorrectly. Poor pre-flight inspection. True, it wasn't a very good plane, though.
@Dave Barclay, BOAC, I think, may have been forewarned about the Tudor's shortcomings and rejected it in favor of American-built aircraft on its trans-Atlantic services before the Bristol Britannia and de Havilland Comet 4 came along.
@@johneddy908 In those days BOAC was effectively a government department rather than an independent airline and they were under pressure to support the British aviation industry. Despite that the Ministry of Aviation allowed them to cancel their order for Tudors and buy Canadair Argonauts instead, probably one of he best decisions BOAC made and an eloquent comment on just how poor the Tudor was.
If anyone wants to know more about the Star Dust crash, can I reocmmend Jay Rayner's (yes - the restaurant critic) Star Dust Falling which gives a lot of detail about the crew and passengers as well as the deeply-troubled BSAA itself. Great book.
The Avro Tudor was doomed from the beginning. It was seen as little more than a pressurized DC-4 with a DC-3 undercarriage. Worst of all, its Rolls-Royce Merlin supercharged V12s were very noisy and weren't really meant for use in commercial airliners, even though the TCA/Air Canada and BOAC Canadair North Stars had special "crossover" exhausts which reduced noise somewhat. It's no wonder that BOAC rejected the Tudor and ordered Boeing Stratorcruisers and Lockheed Constellations for trans-Atlantic services prior to the Bristol Britannia turboprop and de Havilland Comet 4 pure-jet aircraft.
The leader of the five Avengers had been in trouble being unable to navigate and was flying east not west as he insisted. Over six thousand ships have sunk around Britten's coast. Maybe we call that the Bull**it triangle. Some have been said to have been taken by French UFOs.
As far as the Averages go Talyor got lost and ran fight out of fuel
That had a touch of Dan Air, taking the risky routes and getting a bad rep
I flew Dan Air Comet 4 Great little airline & great airliner & felt very safe flying with them .
When I worked for Shell, and flew to a lot of places, we called them Dan Dare, because of this rather undeserved reputation. Then there was Australia's Ansett ANA - according to the Aussies themselves 'Chance it with Ansett'. ;)
There was word that an Avro Tudor was going to be on display in the U.K. some years ago.. They are still waiting for it to turn up.
Back when a fear of flying wasn’t irrational.
@niels lund not only Boeing, but many others as well
Dodgy business, flying. I spent over three years working for an airline in the 60s. We had one go down on Mt Canigou in the Pyrenees and another in Stockport.
@@royfearn4345 Interesting :)
@@royfearn4345 British Midland Airways?
Good job Ruairidh. Love your narration style, you have a good voice and great narrative cadence. Should do this professionally.
I still have an old plastic 1/72 scale kit of an Avro Tudor. It was made by a company called Sutcliffe/Contrails.
I read an article quoting several ex-BSAA pilots & crew .... they didn't like the Tudor and said the hydraulics and heater were extremely dangerous - according to Capt. Peter Duffey the heater used kerosene that was dripped on a hot tube to warm the cabin, and it was dangerously close to the hydraulic lines - a fuel vapor explosion or fire could have easily blown up Star Tiger/Star Ariel, and maybe the searchers just didn't notice the bits of floating wreckage that were left.
There's often not much floating wreckage from an all metal aircraft.
My uncle flew for BSAA. He left after a disagreement with the CEO over safety standards, saying that the airline was being run without proper safety guidelines.
My dad severed on the Kersarge - although it was in the 60s not the 40s and in the Gulf of Tonkin and not the Atlantic
served ?
Stendec - there is an excellent book about this called Stardust
2:18 That kid has boxing gloves and what looks like a tennis racket?
To this day there are no direct flights from Asia to South America for some of the reasons that these planes were lost . There is no radar coverage over the south Atlantic due to there being no place to base them an very little traffic to monitor . Also the Caribbean being more third Wold than 1st does not have state of the art tracking systems or search and rescue ability . So in those days your first knowledge of a plane being missing is it doesn't show up at the airport when it is supposed to , this doesn't give search and rescue much to go on . The fact we still don't do this tells the story .
I'm pretty sure that it's got much more to do with the fact that there's not enough demand for tickets on potential routes between Asia and South America, at least for direct flights. One can always change planes at a selection of major hub airports to get from practically anywhere to practically anywhere else, in often as little as two flights nowadays.
Lack of radar on the ground doesn't deter thousands of flights a day from crossing vast stretches of oceans and zooming over polar routes.
Today, we have real time position tracking via satellite, so in the vanishingly remote prospect of an aircraft going missing by accident, searchers would have the aircraft's last position available up until the moment that it stopped transmitting.
Things have changed a lot since Amelia Earhart went missing in 1937, LOL!
Haha.
A video on a company called BSAA.
The day before the spooky day.
Clever.
The Tutor killed it’s creator in prototype. Cursed from birth.
This story outlines the importance of flying above the weather.
Could you make the history of British EMUs?
Fly BSAA: when you REALLY want to get away!
Whilst working in the British aircraft industry in the 1960’s it was said that the Avro Tudor crashes were due to it having an aerodynamic peculiarity which under certain circumstances caused a nose up attitude which could not be corrected & graduslly became worse until the aircraft stalled & crashed.
Sounds like a 737 Max8
@@garethonthetube 737 Max: ... the other directional pitch.
mmm .. Centre of Lift problem that could get worse with rising altitude and diminishing horizontal stability authority. Could this phenomenon explain the Andes crash?
No one knows what STENDEC means to this day.
Was it in an acronym from the second world war about weather conditions
Enjoyed this. Am curious about how you pronounce your first name.
May I recommend the book "The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved by Larry Kusche.
There is a chapter about these aircraft disappearances and the possible causes.
There's little or no mystery - they pushed the boundaries of available technology and didn't provide enough emergency leeway. Out of fuel: crash!
@@royfearn4345 Even a failed engine can be fatal. Although the pane can still fly OK it will use more fuel especially if the dead prop can't be feathered.
Really enjoyed the video, thank you!
Dead reckoning in mountainous terrain/long distance overwater...
These people were either completely clueless or had balls the size of coconuts!
very good and interesting, i love these types of presentations and look forward to more of the same Regards J.T. at 73 !
BSAA: Fly with us into the afterlife.
There was a little rhyme at that time:
BOAC will take good care of you,
BEA will get you there and back again,
BSAA will inform your next of kin.
This was the result of: BOAC lost 2.3 passengers per 100 million miles. All the North American carriers together lost 3.78 passengers per 100 million miles, BEA had a totally clean slate, BSAA lost 61.6 passengers per 100 million miles.
Sometimes one just cannot catch a break. Very good history on the airline. A lot of $ lost and lives too. Long range commercial transport needs special aircraft and the Lancaster wasn't it.
I like how you start and finish your videos.
No pomp and ceremony.
And no - silly - 'don't forget to like, subscribe and blah blah blah'.
Just start it and finish it.
☮
I never seen that aircraft at all in my life
I think I read that Avro Tudors were grounded a while,at least with passenger services?
Just a side comment: that Tudor was one handsome aircraft.
a long overdue story , thank you from wigan , lancs
Great, interesting documentary on the loss of aircraft. The narration has been spoken far too fast to be comfortably comprehended. Other than that, five stars for the whole production.
4:33 "de Brie"???? Why the 'Merkin mispronunciation?
As I once saw someone say, it would make a good subject for a film: Carry On Crashing 🤨😣
The curse of the four letter acronym.
Not being an expert aviator, I can only conclude that these planes that crashed into these mountains did not have radar detection for objects in their path!
No, the Lancastrian did not have terrain avoidance radar. That came much later in aviation development.
@@paulkirkland3263 I've often wondered how did they navigate around or above these Mts. at night unless they knew the heights and based that on their altimeters
@@ralphsanchico2452 They knew the height of the mountains along their route, and so flew above them, as you correctly state. The problem for Star Dust was as explained in the video - based on elapsed time, and average speed, they assumed they were well clear of the Andes and able to descend into Santiago. What they did not know was that high altitude wind, known as the jet stream , had been slowing their progress, and while the cockpit instruments were showing the expected indicated air speed, the actual speed across the ground was much reduced. Consequently, they weren't as far west as they thought they were - and descended into the mountains, rather than to the west of them. That is the assumption, anyway. Very sad.
For those who might be interested Charles Lindbergh ran into problems when he flew back from I guess Mexico City to this Compass was going in circles until they got close to Florida
Rather similar to what may have happened to Malaysian MH380....off route and fuel exhaustion.At least we know what brought down MH17 but who fired the missle remains a mystery.The Bermuda Triangle seems to have largely manufactured by paper back writer Charles Berliz.
Small companies often struggle.
Why didn't airports broadcast homing beacons, and airliners have radio direction finders?
10:52 First time I've heard of a plane going down due to possible "spiritual" forces.
Does anyone know why the Avro Tudor turned out to be such a turkey? Avro had a long history of making great planes and the Tudor was designed by one of their finest - Ray Chadwick. Yet, the Tudor was turned down by BOAC, Qantas, South African Airways and the Australian military. Obviously it was far inferior to the DC-4 and the Constellation, but how had one of the UK's largest plane builders fallen so far behind the Americans and produced something with a less than enviable safety record?
1:00 British Latin American Air Lines is *BLAAL,* not BLAIR. I submit it was doomed to failure from this point.
Sorry: when you have that many losses on one airline in a short period you need to start looking at the training and who you are hiring.
Those were the early days of commercial aviation and I imagine that at that time there were many experienced ex- RAF aircrew ( pilots, navigators and flight engineers ) involved in flying these aircraft, so I doubt professional capability or experience is in question here. Obviously, some mistakes were made but I would be more inclined to look at the age and quality of the aircraft used. Maintenance regulations were not as stringent as they are now and some of those aircraft would have been tired structurally.
All of the company pilots had been good enough to navigate and bomb Germany during the war so they must have been good navigators in the first place
Don Bennett was director until early 1948. I feel that this scotches any suggestion of a personnel problem.
@@CanadairCL44 Avro Tudors and Lancastrians were brand new at the time, the age of the planes does not figure in the equation. I agree with OP that it was down to poor training and poor selection criteria for air crews. One suspects that postwar, the best crews in the UK would have been swept up by BOAC. Major airlines of the day were flying similar and sometimes longer routes, including over the Andes and open ocean, without much drama.
And, you might suggest, the senior management; the 'press on at all costs' mindset of highly decorated military aviators was not necessarily entirely compatible with the 'safety above all' mindset of civil aviation
An Avro Tudor was lost whilst trying to land at Llandow Airfield in the 1950's apparently as it was coming in to land the nose suddenly pitched up and it stalled and fell to the ground I don't think there were any survivors, also the designer of The Tudor was killed during a test flight due to incorrectly coupled aileron cables, not a great record really!!!
This was an Airflight operated Tudor and the Manager of Airflight was: AVM Don Bennett ex-BSAA Director.
Where the heck is Bermuder?
"I'm from the National Government, and I'm here to help you........."
Big up, BeeWee!
Hello, I had the pleasure of passengering on Bee Wee in the Caribbean on the 23rd Feb 1985 flight BW 419 Barbados to Port of Spain whilst working for BA. Can't remember the aircraft, but wonderful memories of the places and people. It is missed
@@paulreilly3904 cool
mid air refueling - that is bonkers (with hindsight)
Since the Tudor IV had a pressureized cabin, how about metal fatigue, like befell the later Comet I?
Not impossible; but less likely, as the Tudir had round(ish) windows.
@@jimtaylor294 I'm thinking about metallurgy which was also a factor with the Comet. Especially skin thickness combined with metal fatigue which wasn't ireally nvesstigated until the Comet hit the tank....
@@jimtaylor294 that mitigates the risk but the comet cracks I think started not at the side windows. The mistake was at manufacturing as they punched instead of drilled holes
@@johnpinckney4979 Kind of. The Comet I had been throughly tested prior to service entry by the standards of the time; and because only a handful of non-commercial aircraft had been up that high before, it wasn't a known issue.
An Electron Microscope would have identified the issues with the manufacturing process (punching rivets instead of drilling) and that the airframe was being overstressed in other areas; but this was brand new technology at the time, that few if any aircraft companies possessed (a bit like Car Companies & Wind Tunnels).
The skin thickness didn't help the issue (done that way to reduce airframe weight), but the same issues would have doomed a thicker skinned airframe too.
@@Dilley_G45 Aye there was that (the standard visual inspection means at the time couldn't see the cracks around the rivet holes), and yes at least one Comet I was lost to cracking that started at the topside radio antenna. The tank test that identified the problem though focused on the windows, which was reasonable as the airframe tested ruptured there.
With the Tudor it would require checking AV Roe's records and one of the airframes to confirm if the riveting was done in such a way as deHavilland.
Stendec...
STENDEC and SCTI (Los Cerrillos) AR (over) are the same characters with different spaces.
Strange things happen in the Bermuda Triangle!
As usual ... excellent!
Nope. No 'but' ... just that and ... well, this!
Yep. Excellent.
Carry on, good sir!
With the benefit of hindsight, the Avro Tudor was not a good aircraft. Roy Chadwick, a very talented designer, responsible for the Anson and the Lancaster, was killed in a Tudor. It slightly resembled the HP Hastings, itself somewhat trouble-prone. Most regrettably, immediate post-war aircraft types seemed to lag far behind US counterparts. The DH104, Dove, was an exception, followed by the DH114, Heron. But they were just feeder-liners. With outdated, heavy, Gypsy engines. The AS Ambassador, & HP Herald were very good a/c, but from what I’ve been able to glean, hamstrung by the governments of the time. The Viscount was also very successful, but hardly a transatlantic airliner. The US were rather better at building long range aeroplanes, and benefitting from British disasters and research.
Crucially the USA were much better at mass production.
I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.
Darn it wrong video I was after the BSAA from Resident evil.
GOD Bless
I thought it was sum resident evil related stuff
Idk why I said a for no reason
"complEment", not "complIment"...
Star Ariel was heading to Jamaica.
S-T-E-N-D-E-C
Given the known limitations of long range radio communication devices of the period, why didn't anyone thought to post picket ships along the route in order to maintain constant contact with the transatlantic flights? Even a small 2 man ship at the midpoint would had been helpful and also allow the onboard navigator of the airline to get a fix and correct for course deviations.
Bsaa is like the Malaysian airlines of the 20th century
Just reading the Wikipedia article and adding stock photos isn't very useful
Well its better than fire
wow
Really science is the limited knowledge of ignorant people . They can not imagine this mysterious World. An 0dia from Odisha, Jagannath desh, India.
a
It would be so much easier on a great number of our ears if you spoke more slowly ... never mind the short attention span folk ... they're too dim to appreciate this video fully.
Some of the pronunciation and use of English in the commentary is not very good. Get someone else to check your work.
Six passengers? SIX passengers? No wonder the British government nationalized the airline industry, you don't fly a big-ass four-engine gas-guzzling aircraft with just SIX passengers! Sheeesh!!
You do if they pay enough.