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Vanished!
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Program Overview
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In 1947, Stardust, an airliner converted from a World War II
bomber, disappeared on a flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago
without a trace. Fifty-three years later, NOVA follows an
international team using modern scientific methods to piece together
what happened and why.
The program:
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describes the circumstances of the flight's sudden disappearance
in South America's Andes mountains and relates theories that
evolved in the absence of hard information.
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recounts the discovery of one of Stardust's engines as
well as personal effects on the glacier below Mount Tupangato.
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explains how analyzing the wreckage distribution is critical to
discovering what happened, because different types of crashes
leave different patterns on the ground.
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outlines the various crash theories considered by investigators.
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reviews the team's final theory on what probably happened:
Stardust crashed on the eastern face of Tupangato and its
wreckage was first covered by avalanche and then carried away by
glacial flow.
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speculates the plane crashed because flight crew members
encountered stronger winds than they had calculated for, which
altered their flight path without the crew's knowledge.
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explores how navigation practices of the 1940s and lack of
knowledge of the jet stream may have contributed to the crash.
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