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http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/46-years-later-indian-diplomatic-bag-discovered-on-mt-blanc_241976.html

46 years later, Indian diplomatic bag discovered on Mt Blanc

29/08/2012

A bag of Indian diplomatic mail is set to be delivered more than 46 years late after it was found on Mont Blanc in the French Alps, close to where an Air India plane crashed in January 1966.

The jute bag, stamped "Diplomatic mail" and "Ministry of External Affairs", was recovered by mountain rescue worker Arnaud Christmann and his neighbour Jules Berger on August 21.

"Some tourists came and told us they had seen something shining on the Bossons glacier," so he and his neighbour decided to go have a look, Christmann told AFP on Wednesday.

"We found pieces of the cabin, a shoe, cables - it's a real dump up there!"

The two men also came across a plane wheel and, 20 metres (yards) further on, the diplomatic bag that was "sitting as if someone had just placed it there."

"We were hoping for diamonds or at least a few gold ingots. Instead we got some soaking wet mail and Indian newspapers," Christmann quipped.

"It's not the sort of thing you find very often in the mountains -- the mail's going to arrive 46 years late."

The Kangchenjunga, a Boeing 707 flying from Mumbai (Bombay) to New York, crashed on the southwest face of Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest mountain, on January 24, 1966 as it descended towards a scheduled stopover in Geneva, Switzerland. All 117 people on board died.

The diplomatic bag was handed over to police in the town of Chamonix at the base of the mountain. The Indian embassy in Paris said Wednesday it had not been informed of the discovery but that officials would be looking into it with a view to recovering the bag.

In September 2008, well-known climber Daniel Roche discovered Indian newspapers dated January 23, 1966 in the same area.

Roche also came across part of an engine from the Malabar Princess, another Air India plane which had crashed in a virtually identical location in 1950.
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sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

...remnants of the tragic Kanchenjunga crash, which conspiracy theorists claim was a CIA plot to eliminate the great Homi Bhabha.

The_Goat · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 7:00 pm Post subject:

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Jaysit · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 4346

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

The Italian jet `theory' was news to me. What I had heard was no, not some bomb, but something to do with intentional tampering of some instruments, one of which manifested in the VOR fault.
A very sad event in the history of Indian civil aviation.

Jaysit · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 4346

747-237 · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:30 am Post subject:

Anyways, this is what was found.....

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sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

747-237 · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 8:23 am Post subject:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ai-purser-brings-back-diplomatic-bag-lost-in-crash-that-killed-father/1004703/0

AI purser brings back diplomatic bag lost in crash that killed father
Sep 19 2012

It was by pure chance that an Indian diplomatic bag that went down with an Air India aircraft that crashed in January 1966 was discovered in the French Alps last month. Now, in a remarkable coincidence, the bag has returned home in the custody of an Air India flight purser whose father died in that crash.

Chandan R Barooah said it was out of curiosity that he inquired about the bag handed over to him last week by an Indian embassy official in Paris, with the instruction that it was of “historic value”. It was when he pressed for details, Barooah said, that the official told him that the bag was a remnant of the AI crash in which eminent nuclear scientist Homi J Bhabha had died.

Barooah said his eyes welled up; his father Ramesh Chandra Barooah had been an AI flight engineer on the plane, dying along with 116 others.

“It was all a matter of destiny... the remnants of that crash in my flight, that too in my custody,” he told The Indian Express. Barooah’s wife Dhiraj, a senior airhostess, was also on the flight. “We both kept talking about destiny,” he said.

Barooah was 18 months old when his father, who was in his early thirties, passed away. He lived in Mumbai at the time, along with his mother and elder brother.

“After I joined AI, I tried several times to go to the spot where the crash is supposed to have taken place. Once, in the early eighties, I reached Italy and was on my way to that spot, but the weather turned hostile,” he said, adding that he always wanted to join the national carrier emulating his father.

The faintly green diplomatic bag, with markings saying “diplomatic mail” and “Ministry of External Affairs”, was recovered from Mont Blanc by a mountain rescue worker and his neighbour after some tourists spotted it on a glacier in August last week. Later, the Indian Embassy in Paris sent an official to retrieve the bag. It reached India a couple of days ago and was displayed by the MEA on Tuesday.

Classified as “Type C”, the 9-kg bag had no official or secret diplomatic communication.

The creased but quite well-preserved newspapers inside feature stories on the Vietnam War, a photograph of then prime minister Indira Gandhi, and the planned exchange of a captured air crew between India and Pakistan. The bag also contains Air India calendars, along with some personal letters.

Till about seven-eight years ago, till Internet made this redundant, Indian Embassies would be sent newspapers daily through a diplomatic bag.

MEA officials stand near a diplomatic bag containing newspapers and many other articles from India, which were found on Mont Blanc in the French Alps -PTI
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747-237 · Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2013 5:40 am Post subject:

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/26/20707001-frozen-treasure-found-amid-plane-wreckage-in-the-french-alps?lite=

Frozen treasure found amid plane wreckage in the French Alps

A treasure of precious jewels has been found by a young alpinist on the ice caps of Mont Blanc, where it likely was lost decades ago amid the wreckage of a crashed airliner.

The chief commandant of the national police of Albertville, France, confirmed to NBC News that about a hundred small, precious stones were found in a metallic box in the ice caps known as Bossons. Commandant Sylvain Merly said the precious stones were separated in plastic bags that were stamped "Made in India."

A local jeweler estimates the treasure to be worth between $175,000 and $325,000.

The diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies are believed to have come from one of two Air India planes that crashed in the French Alps in 1950 and 1966.

Locals are familiar with the story of the Boeing 707 belonging to Air India that mysteriously crashed in January 1966. The plane had departed Beirut, Lebanon, and was bound for Geneva when it lost control and struck Mont Blanc, the Alps' highest peak at 15,781 feet.

One hundred-sixty-five people died in the crash, 16 years after another Air India plane crashed in the same area.

The young male climber who stumbled across the lost treasure wishes to remain anonymous.

French authorities must now contact their Indian peers to try to find the owners of the jewels. If no one claims the gems, they will be returned to the young Savoyard mountain climber.

A diplomatic suitcase filled with documents was found in the area last month. Merly said as the ice caps change, debris from the plane crashes rises to the surface periodically. Skeletons of monkeys known to have been transported in the Air India crash have also been found in the past.

Arnaud Christmann, another alpinist familiar with the area, is quoted in Le Figaro daily on-line as saying he feared the discovery would trigger "a gold rush" to the area.

Access to the glacier is not difficult but remains dangerous, Christmann said. "Today, the crash site is like a dumping ground for the open sky."

He asked "for some respect for the area" and regretted the "spirit of treasure hunters" that motivated some mountain climbers.
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747-237 · Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 12:49 am Post subject:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11039691/French-treasure-hunter-finds-50-pieces-of-jewellery-on-Mont-Blanc-from-Air-India-crash-48-years-ago.html

French treasure hunter finds 50 pieces of jewellery on Mont Blanc from Air India crash 48 years ago

Climber Daniel Roche finds necklaces, bracelets, pendants from an Air India Boeing 707 that crashed in 1966 with 117 people on board, saying the gems looked as though they had been "placed there the previous day"

17 Aug 2014

A French treasure hunter has found a trove of jewellery, including bracelets and necklaces, on the ice of Mont Blanc belonging to passengers from an Air India plane that crashed on western Europe's highest peak half a century ago.

The find comes a year after a young mountaineer stumbled across a metal box containing 100 diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires valued at €240,000 (£193,000).

Daniel Roche, who has been scouring the mountain in search of objects for years, came across around a fresh set of 50 pieces of jewellery which the Bossons glacier had pushed to the surface.

"They were scattered around a big cone at the Plateau des Pyramides, as if they had been placed the previous day," he told Le Parisien. "There were bracelets, necklaces, pendants, gold chains, earrings." Like the other unearthed gems, Mr Roche said he believed the jewels came from Air India flight Kangchenjunga - a Boeing 707 flying from Mumbai to London which crashed on the southwest face of Mont Blanc on January 24, 1966. Some 117 people died in the crash, including the pioneer of India's nuclear programme, Homi Jehangir Bhabha.

Mr Roche, a former international yachtsman, has discovered a host of objects from the 1966 disaster and another - Air India's Malabar Princess, which crashed on 3 November, 1950 with 48 people on board - including a jet engine and human remains.

He will be adding the jewels to his burgeoning collection. He said: "There's no question of me selling them. They are nothing like as valuable as those found by the young Savoyard last summer."

Unlike Mr Roche, the unidentified young climber who discovered the metal box of precious stones in 2013 handed them into police. Since then, several descendants of passengers have come forward to claim them, including the British children and ex-wife of Admond Issachoroff, a precious stone importer based in London at the time.

The crash site hit the headlines in September 2012, when India took possession of a bag of diplomatic mail from the Kanchenjunga.

Some local experts have since expressed anger at mountain treasure hunters.

Arnaud Christmann, the rescue worker who found the diplomatic mail, warned that the discovery of precious stones could spark a "gold rush".

"Today, the crash site is like an open-air dump, with debris from the wreck scattered everywhere," he told Le Figaro.

Inexperienced climbers might be tempted to try and seek their fortune on the glacier, which is easy to access but dangerous, he said.

"There are crevasses, holes and rivers. You also have to watch out for falling rocks," he said.

Complaining that some climbers displayed a "grave digger mentality", he added: "I ask people to show some respect for this place."