Exploration
Searching for Star Dust: An epic quest to find a near-mythical plane wreck
This February, three friends ventured into the heart of the Andes to locate a mystery 1947 plane wreck emerging from a glacier due to climate change. Matt Maynard reveals the highs and lows.
72 years ago a small passenger plane bound for Santiago took off from Buenos Aires and never landed. Its name was Star Dust and it contained five crew members consisting of former British Air Force personnel, and six passengers. Two of these passengers were Paul Simpson, a King's Messenger with diplomatic documents destined for the British embassy in Santiago, and Casis Said Atalah, a Chillean-Palastinian man believed to have been carrying a diamond in the lining of his suit.
Four minutes before the plane's scheduled landing at Santiago airport, a control tower received a cryptic message from Star Dust: 'STENDEC'. The message was repeated twice and has never been explained. Conspiracy abounded following the craft's disappearance. Some suspected a missile-strike assassination of King George VI’s onboard messenger because he carried secret papers that could have destabilised South America. Others believed the plane held a heavy cargo of British gold bullion, or even that certain passengers were Nazis on the run. More far-fetched theories involved alien abduction.
British South American Airways' Star Dust
© Wiki Commons
For five more decades nobody knew what had become of the plane – until 1998, when two Argentinian mountaineers found a Rolls Royce engine at the foot of 6570m Cerro Tupungato’s south-east face. In 2002, authorities DNA-identified a severed hand belonging to an air stewardess, painted fingernails intact, alongside human remains belonging to nine of the eleven people onboard.
Crash investigators believed that the pilot, Reginald Cook, a distinguished former British Air Force vet, had mistook his position and descended too early and crashed spectacularly into the glacier. The aptly named Star Dust was quickly swallowed by an avalanche, disappearing for over half a century beneath some of the world's remotest ice.
Just what secrets are buried in the The Andes?
© Matt Maynard
Back in 1947, domestic air travel across the Andes was like playing Russian roulette. Each plane fired across the mountains relied on veteran WWII pilots dodging each snowy summit that sprung through the clouds. Even for aircraft of today, crossing the world’s longest mountain chain is no mean feat.
I first heard about the Star Dust when looking for a remote 6,000m+ Andean summit to climb in mid-2018. The upside down seasons meant early 2019 would provide the weather window; and a north-facing ridge would make for warmer, less dangerous climbing.
Tupungato looming large in the distance
© Matt Maynard
But those weren’t the only criteria. Almost all glaciers in the 7,000km Andean chain – from Venezuela to Patagonia – are dying. And at an increasing speed. The consequences of glacier loss are massive, potentially threatening reliable agricultural and even drinking water not only in South America – but in New Zealand, the Himalayas, North America, East Africa, the Alps and the Poles.
Jimmy Hyland explores the skeleton of an old bus
© Matt Maynard
In my mind, the plight of these mighty glaciers needed to be brought into the global consciousness. The issue needed a different type of light shining on it, which is why I planned a journey to find this plane emerging from the ice due to climate change. Rumours that it was carrying gold bars, a diamond sown into a jacket pocket and message from a king just sealed the deal.
The mission was on
From left to right: Hyland, Davies, Maynard
© Matt Maynard
Initially I kept the plan a secret, sharing it only with two select team-mates. First, the award-winning adventure filmmaker Jimmy Hyland. Second, the seasoned mountaineer and our trusted mutual friend and farmer, Joe Davies.
Our expedition would start 80km south of Mendoza at the Refugio Plaza army base at the entrance to the Santa Clara Valley. We’d hire mules to portage 15 days of food over the initial 4,680m Azufre pass. After establishing basecamp in the Tupungato Valley we’d then climb to the 4,800m crash site. Using a series of historical satellite maps we’d assess the glacier’s retreat, comparing the new emerging plane parts to the wreckage documented in the year 2000. Finally we’d summit the 6,570m Tupungato, one of the highest mountains in the Americas, our view revealing the fateful intended flight path into Chile.
At least that was the plan…
We encountered military intervention
Maynard's group relied on mule guides to help traverse the tricky landscape
© Matt Maynard
'There’s a problem with the army. They are not going to let you pass.' This was the last WhatsApp message received from our mule guide Fabio Cardozo before our bus crossed the Andes from Chile into Argentina. It was terrible news.
Our request was unusual but not unknown. On average only one expedition per year seeks permission to climb Tupungato. Some years, none at all (thousands flock – rather unimaginatively perhaps – to nearby and slightly-higher Aconcagua, the highest peak outside the Himalayas). Down in Mendoza, inside a dark tinted glass army base, a group of soldiers took our names and telephoned our request to appeal the decision with the Colonel Major of the VIII Mountain Brigade. We tapped our mountaineering boots impatiently for over an hour under the gaze of an armed guard. But the decision was final.
The alternative route was more treacherous
When the army barred access, the group had to find a new route to Star Dust
© Matt Maynard
Once we'd left the base we spread our maps on Fabio’s bonnet. Months of trip construction and detail seemed to be crashing down around us. Fabio's finger circled the army base on the map, then, tentatively at first, started to veer south. His index finger inventing a new route through a labyrinth of high-altitude icy contours and seemingly insurmountable rock faces. Sneaking through an armed military base seemed a far safer option. But even though the ruling seemed wickedly unfair, we respected the army’s decision. Perhaps this was the reason we could find no evidence of anyone reaching the crash site since the military recovery operation in 2000. Our Search for Star Dust had just got a whole lot wilder.
We packed as light as possible, allowing 3000kcal per day. In Santiago’s mega-market we had bought wholesale-minimally-packaged-vegetarian ingredients to make pasta, rice and noodle dishes. We tried to reduce our footprint further with culinary support from the Firepot food company who make delicious dehydrated meals in compostable packaging. Any unavoidable emissions from new equipment required as well as planes, buses and 4x4 transport were offset by Rab, our clothing and equipment sponsor.
And despite our best dietary intentions for the planet, no cultural Argentinian experience is complete without a good barbecue. With glasses of Fernet-Branca (think cough medicine with a kick) and forkfuls of roasted meat, we politely toasted our reinvented trip with the locals. It was with sore heads and sorer bellies we set out next morning for the more southerly Tunuyán Valley.
Our food-carrying mule was washed away by the river
A mule - with half the group's supplies - was left stranded by the river
© Matt Maynard
On day two of the expedition we were ascending the Tunuyán Valley with the lofty aim of breaking over its 5,000m headwall before descending down into the Tupungato crash site. We had hired a new mule guide, Manuel, who supposedly knew the area, but by lunchtime he was in serious trouble. Andean rivers swell throughout the day as glaciers melt in the sunshine; electric-blue streams mutate into chocolate torrents in a blink of an eye.
By 2pm an underwater thunderstorm was brewing. The Tunuyán was spinning submerged suitcase-sized-boulders as if they were candyfloss. Our valley was narrowing too. Icy spray from river waves stung our faces as we picked our way over slick rocks wearing 30kg rucksacks. Ropes, ice-axes, a tent and food were ahead on Manuel’s mule, but when we looked up it was suddenly all gone. “The mule stepped into the current,” Manuel explained. “He was washed across the river." More than half our supplies and equipment, including our reserve tent, had gone.
We slept with ice-axes by our side to protect against pumas
The team pitch up high above the Andes
© Matt Maynard
We couldn’t all fit in our one remaining tent. Jimmy prepared for a hungry night out under the southern Milky Way with Manuel. Mule men, known locally as arrieros, are used to sleeping under the stars and quickly converted their saddle set-ups to sleeping mattresses.
At night in these mountains the pumas begin to hunt. Arrieros are all too accustomed to these lions of the mountains, killing them when they find them near their livestock. And whilst pumas aren't known to hunt humans, it didn't stop us from reaching for our ice axes as we took turns to sleep outdoors each night for the remainder of the expedition.
Life can be hard in the Andes. As we slipped into our sleeping bags amongst the boulders, our mule re-appeared, noticeably injured. He had re-crossed the wild river alone. Our guide said he'd be OK. We felt responsible for the animal having to carry our bag so late into the night. But imposing Western values about conservation and working-animals on the arrieros’ culture and livelihoods felt just as wrong.
Traversing the icy terrain was no walk in the park
Eight days from civilisation, any injuries would be hard to treat
© Jimmy Hyland; JHPVisuals
There was a lot of frustration on the first week of our expedition. Once Manuel and his reunited mule reached the Tunuyán ice-field they could go no further. We made slow progress across the 17km glacier that separated us from the Star Dust plane. Without the animals we now had to relay the kit, bringing the total distance to 51km. Travelling on glaciers is dangerous at the best of times but this was madness. Here the crevasses – man-eating slots in the morphing ice – were camouflaged beneath a luring layer of rocks and dust. Kilometres of contorted ice stretched like a frozen angry sea to the horizon, where, by focusing my camera, I could pick out blue multi-storey cliffs guarding passage into Tupungato.
To save weight we now cooked together with just one pot. When we ate, we waited for one another to eat their fill before reaching for the bowl. In Argentina they do the same with maté tea. The green-leaf infusion is as much a social experience as a drink with everyone sipping from the same hollowed out gourd and metal straw. Rather than focusing on ourselves, maté and dinner times brought us together closer as a group.
I accidentally poisoned the team in a snow storm
When supplies were lost, the climbing group had to ration food
© Matt Maynard
With every day that passed, our chances of reaching the Star Dust on this expedition seemed to slip further from our grasp. To avoid the 17km glacier we initially picked up a faint trail that skirted its edge, made by wild guanaco (think mountain llama on steroids). It got dangerous fast, leading across an impossibly steep and crumbling landslide. The inevitable toboggan-ride threatened to shoot Jimmy and Joe over a 200m cliff, finishing deep in the crevasses below. They made a fingernail-scraping retreat. The glacier crossing was not an option.
Refusing to be defeated, we made one last madcap attempt via a charging river canyon to reach the Star Dust. By nightfall we were at 4,350m, having broken through an ice cornice in the late afternoon to pitch camp on an exposed ridge. Wind-driven snow closed in as we pinned each guy rope with 50kg of rocks. We couldn’t afford to lose our only remaining shelter up there.
While the others prepared the sleeping bags I prepared food in the diving outside temperatures. It was minus 20 degrees as I hurriedly mixed the “Ikke Spise” seasoning packets with the dehydrated meals. Reunited inside the tent, both climbing partners yelped as I broke it into the food.
Turns out 'Ikke Spise' isn’t a delicious spice mix – but actually Danish for 'Do not eat', which on closer inspection also appeared on the packet in bold, capital letters. No doctor was coming up here to check the digestive effects of eating oxygen-absorption filings. It’d been eight days since we had phone signal. Fortunately, the effects didn't last long and we powered on.
We battled the elements until the end
The remote crash site became harder and harder to reach for the team
© Jimmy Hyland; JHP Visual
In February 2019 we established that the Star Dust was now next-to-impossible to reach from either the eastern army base that guards the Santa Clara Valley or by crossing the southern Tunuyán Glacier. To the west, on Tupungato’s north-facing summit ridge, lies a possible access point from Chile – yet the border crossing is not permitted.
After surviving the Ikke Spise mishap we were shut down by impassable rock towers and spent the remainder of the expedition exploring the western branch of the Tunuyán Valley. The only remaining potential access point to the Star Dust was from the north at Puente de Vacas – a 50km approach up the furious banks of the Tupungato Valley’s lower outlet river. As the climate continues to change, and glaciers continue to melt, this could, rather sadly, become a more viable option.
We missed Star Dust but found adventure
Despite the ups and downs the group found proper adventure
© Matt Maynard
We went into the mountains to tell a story about a very old, and very unwell glacier. Sponsored expeditions these days are increasingly looking beyond the headlines of 'steepest ice' and 'hardest rock' to try and share a new kind of adventure – where the local people, their landscapes and languages come first.
A shot of the cosmos during the search for Star Dust
© Jimmy Hyland; JHP Visual
You don’t have to be a professional athlete to go on such an adventure. Just get far out there, find something you care about, learn a little about what we stand to lose – then make it back safely to share your story.
Follow Matt Maynard on Instagram here. Follow Jimmy Hyland on Instagram here.