Air India Flight 101
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 24 January 1966 |
| Summary | Instrument malfunction |
| Site | Mont Blanc, France |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 707-437 |
| Aircraft name | Kanchenjunga |
| Operator | Air India |
| Registration | VT-DMN |
| Flight origin | Bombay, India |
| 1st stopover | Delhi, India |
| 2nd stopover | Beirut International Airport, Lebanon |
| 3rd stopover | Geneva, Switzerland |
| Destination | New York City, United States |
| Passengers | 106 |
| Crew | 11 |
| Fatalities | 117 (all) |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Survivors | 0 |
Air India Flight 101 was a scheduled Air India passenger flight that crashed into Mont Blanc in France on the morning of 24 January 1966.
Accident
Air India Flight 101 was a scheduled flight from Mumbai to New York and was operated by Boeing 707 registered VT-DMN and named Kanchenjunga.[1] After leaving Bombay, it had made two scheduled stops at Delhi and Beirut and was en route to another stop at Geneva.[1] At Flight Level 190, it was instructed to descend for Geneva International Airport after it had passed Mont Blanc.[1] The pilot, thinking that he had passed Mont Blanc, started to descend and crashed into the Glacier des Bossons (Bossons Glacier) on the southwest face of Mont Blanc in France at an elevation of 4,750 metres (15,584 ft).[1] All 106 passengers and 11 crew were killed.[2]
Passengers
Among the 106 passengers was the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha.[2]
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.[3] It had flown a total of 16188 hours.[3]
Investigation
The investigation concluded:[1]
a) The pilot-in-command, who knew on leaving Beirut that one of the VORs was unserviceable, miscalculated his position in relation to Mont Blanc and reported his own estimate of this position to the controller; the radar controller noted the error, determined the position of the aircraft correctly and passed a communication to the aircraft which, he believed, would enable it to correct its position.
b) For want of a sufficiently precise phraseology, the correction was mis-understood by the pilot who, under the mistaken impression that he had passed the ridge leading to the summit and was still at a flight level which afforded sufficient safety clearance over the top of Mont Blanc, continued his descent.
Constellation
In 1950 Air India Flight 245, a Lockheed Super Constellation on a charter flight had crashed at almost the same location with the loss of 48 crew and passengers.[2]
Recent discoveries
Bits of wreckage of the crashed Boeing still remain at the crash site. In 2008, a climber found some Indian newspapers dated 23 January 1966, as well as a propeller engine from Air India Flight 245. On 30 August 2012, a 9 kg jute bag of diplomatic mail, stamped "On Indian Government Service, Diplomatic Mail, Ministry of External Affairs" was recovered by a mountain rescue worker, Arnaud Christmann and turned over to local police in Chamonix.[4] Satwant Khanalia, 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 Internet.[5] 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.G. K. Menon.[6] The bag was flown back to New Delhi on a regular Air India flight, in the charge of C. R. Barooah, the flight purser. C.R. Barooah's father, R.C. Barooah, was the flight engineer on Air India Flight 101.[7]
References
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
- ^ a b c d "The Air-India Disaster". Flight International: 174. 3 February 1966.
- ^ a b c Pither 1998, p. 291
- ^ Agence-France-Presse
- ^ Firstpost
- ^ Deccan Herald, 19 September 2012
- ^ The Indian Express, 19 September 2012
Bibliography
- Pither, Tony (1998). The Boeing 707 720 and C-135. England: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. ISBN 0-85130-236-X.
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