Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence Air India Flight 101 was a scheduled Air India passenger flight from Bombay (present-day Mumbai) to London, via Delhi, Beirut, and Geneva. On the morning of 24 January 1966 at 8:02 CET, on approach to Geneva, the Boeing 707-437 operating the flight accidentally crashed into Mont Blanc in France, killing all 117 people on board. Among the victims was Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the founder and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India.
The accident occurred just Template:Cvt from where an Air India Lockheed 749 Constellation operating as Air India Flight 245 while on a charter flight had crashed in 1950.[1]
Accident
Air India Flight 101 was a scheduled flight from Bombay to London; and on the day of the accident was operated by a Boeing 707, registration VT-DMN and named Kanchenjunga.[2] The Pilot-In-Command was an 18-year veteran, Captain Joe T. D'Souza.[3] After leaving Bombay, it had made two scheduled stops, at Delhi and Beirut, and was en route to another stop at Geneva.[2] At flight level 190 (Template:Convert), the crew was instructed to descend for Geneva International Airport after the aircraft had passed Mont Blanc.[2] The pilot, thinking that he had passed Mont Blanc, started to descend and flew into the Mont Blanc massif in France near the Rocher de la Tournette, at an elevation of Template:Convert.[2][4] All 106 passengers and 11 crew were killed.[4][1]
Aircraft
The Boeing 707-437 VT-DMN had first flown on 5 April 1961 and was delivered new to Air India on 25 May 1961.[5] It had flown a total of 16,188 hours.[5] It was named Kanchenjunga, after the third highest mountain in the world.
Casualties
Among the 106 passengers who died was Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the founder and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India.[4]
Investigation
At the time, aircrew fixed the position of their aircraft as being above Mont Blanc by taking a cross-bearing from one VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) as they flew along a track from another VOR. However, the accident aircraft departed Beirut with one of its VOR receivers unserviceable.[2][4]
The investigation concluded:[2]
Recent discoveries
Much of the wreckage of the crashed Boeing still remains at the crash site. In 2008, a climber found some Indian newspapers dated 23 January 1966.[6] An engine from Air India Flight 245, which had crashed at virtually the same spot sixteen years earlier in 1950, was also discovered.
On 21 August 2012, a Template:Convert jute bag of diplomatic mail, stamped "On Indian Government Service, Diplomatic Mail, Ministry of External Affairs", was recovered by a mountain rescue worker and turned over to local police in Chamonix.[7][8] An official with the Indian Embassy in Paris took custody of the mailbag, which was found to be a "Type C" diplomatic pouch meant for newspapers, periodicals, and personal letters. Indian diplomatic pouches "Type A" (classified information) and "Type B" (official communications) are still in use today; "Type C" mailbags were made obsolete with the advent of the Internet.[9] The mailbag was found to contain, among other items, still-white and legible copies of The Hindu and The Statesman from mid-January 1966, Air India calendars, and a personal letter to the Indian consul-general in New York, C.J.K. Menon.[10] The bag was flown back to New Delhi on a regular Air India flight, in the charge of C.R. Barooah, the flight purser. His father, R.C. Barooah, was the flight engineer on Air India Flight 101.[11][12]
In September 2013, a French alpinist found a metal box marked with the Air India logo at the site of the plane crash on Mont Blanc containing rubies, sapphires and emeralds, valued at over €245,000, which he handed in to the police to be returned to the rightful owners.[6][14] As no rightful owners were found, however, in December 2021, the gems were divided up equally between the alpinist and the Chamonix commune: each receiving an amount of stones equivalent to €75,000.[15] As part of her research for her book Crash au Mont-Blanc, which tells the story of the two Air India crashes on the mountain, Françoise Rey found a record of a box of emeralds sent to a man named Issacharov in London, described by Lloyd's.[6] On 11 October 2023, the part belonging to the alpinist was sold at an auction in Chambéry for €25,000.[16]
In 2017, Daniel Roche, a Swiss climber who has searched the Bossons Glacier for wreckage from Air India Flights 245 and 101, found human remains and wreckage including a Boeing 707 aircraft engine.[17] In July 2020, as a result of melting of the glacier, Indian newspapers from 1966 were found in good condition.[18]
On June 4, 2020, a diplomatic bag containing newspapers and official mail was discovered. In 2021, a 'secret' document from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs was also discovered[19] and in 2024, several film reels from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's artificial satellite tracking program, which had been aboard the plane bound for the United States.Template:Cn
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Air India : The story of the aircraft. Airwhiners.net(26 July 2004). Retrieved 13 June 2013.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedASN - ↑ Disaster In The Air{{#if:Haine|, Haine}. Cornwall Books(2000). ISBN 0-8453-4777-2
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedFlight174 - ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedPither - ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The mystery of Mont Blanc's hidden treasure. BBC News(14 March 2014). Retrieved 13 July 2020.
- ↑ Diplomatic post bag from 1966 Indian plane crash found on Mont Blanc. The Daily Telegraph(30 August 2012). Retrieved 28 November 2013.
- ↑ Indian diplomatic bag found on Mt Blanc after 46 years. Agence-France-Presse(August 29, 2012). Retrieved 22 February 2019.
- ↑ Indian diplomatic bag found after 46 years. Firstpost.com(18 September 2012). Retrieved 27 February 2017.
- ↑ 'Diplomatic bag' reaches New Delhi. Deccan Herald(19 September 2012). Retrieved 27 February 2017.
- ↑ AI purser brings back diplomatic bag lost in crash that killed father. Indian Express. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
- ↑ Diplomatic bag lost in air crash brought back home. assamtribune.com(2010-09-15). Retrieved 2022-07-21.
- ↑ Les mystères du glacier des Bossons : crashs d'avion, guerre froide et archéologie glaciaire{{#if:Tramontana|, Tramontana}(2024). ISBN 9798300364465
- ↑ Climber finds treasure trove off Mont Blanc(26 September 2013).
- ↑ Climber can keep $84,000-worth of jewels he found on Mont Blanc. CNN(7 December 2021). Retrieved 7 December 2021.
- ↑ Un trésor, découvert sur un glacier du massif du Mont-Blanc, vendu aux enchères. RTS(11 October 2023).
- ↑ Sabotage or accident? The theories about how India lost nuclear energy pioneer Homi Bhabha. ThePrint.in(24 January 2018). Retrieved 7 September 2019.
- ↑ Indian papers resurfacing in French Alps could be from 1966 plane crash. BBC News(13 July 2020). Retrieved 13 July 2020.
- ↑ Buried Under the Ice of Mont Blanc: A Secret Cold War Document{{#if:Tramontana|, Tramontana}(2024). ISBN 9798315237853
Bibliography
- The Boeing 707 720 and C-135{{#if:Pither|, Pither}. Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd(1998). ISBN 0-85130-236-X
- Crash au Mont-Blanc, les fantômes du Malabar Princess et du Kangchenjunga{{#if:Rey|, Rey}. Le Petit Montagnard(2013). ISBN 9782954272092
External links
- Final Report (Archive) – Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile Template:In lang
- Cockburn, Barbara. "Air India 707 crash wreckage on Mont Blanc". Flight International. 24 January 2009.
Template:Aviation accidents and incidents in 1966 Template:Aviation accidents and incidents in France between 1950 and 1999 Template:Air India Template:Portal bar