Avro Tudor IV
Passenger Aircraft
Star Tiger and Star Ariel
These Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft disappeared without trace en route to Bermuda and Jamaica, respectively.
Star Tiger was lost on January 30, 1948 on a flight from the Azores to Bermuda. Star Ariel was lost on January 17, 1949, on a flight from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica. Neither aircraft gave out a distress call; in fact, their last messages were routine.
A possible clue to their disappearance was found in the mountains of the Andes in 1998: the Star Dust, an Avro Lancastrian airliner run by the same airline, had disappeared on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile on August 2, 1947.
The plane's remains were discovered at the melt end of a glacier, suggesting that either the crew
did not pay attention to their instruments, suffered an instrument failure or did not allow for head-
wind effects from the jetstream on the way to Santiago when it hit a mountain peak, with the
resulting avalanche burying the remains and incorporating it into the glacier.
However, this is mere speculation with regard to the Star Tiger and Star Ariel, pending the recovery
of the aircraft.
It should be noted that the Star Tiger was flying at a height of just 2,000 feet, which would have meant that if the plane was forced down, there would have been no time to send out a distress message. It is also far too low for the jetstream or any other high-altitude wind to have any effect.
