Air India Flight 245 was a scheduled Air India passenger flight from Bombay to London via Cairo and Geneva. On the morning of 3 November 1950, the Lockheed L-749A Constellation serving the flight crashed into Mont Blanc, France, while approaching Geneva. All 48 aboard were killed.

The plane operating the flight was named Malabar Princess, registered as VT-CQP. It was piloted by Captain Alan R. Saint, 34, and co-pilot V. Y. Korgaokar and was carrying 40 passengers and 8 crew. While over France, descending towards Geneva Airport, the flight crashed into the French Alps in stormy weather, killing all on board.[1][2][3]

Accident

The airplane hit the face of the Rocher de la Tournette at a height of 4,677 m (15,344 ft), on the French side of Mont Blanc.[2] Stormy weather prevented immediate rescue efforts; debris was located by a Swiss plane on 5 November, and rescue parties reached the site two days later.[2] There were no survivors. The last transmission from the aircraft, received by controllers at Grenoble and Geneva, was "I am vertical with Voiron, at 4700 meters altitude." at 10:43 a.m.

Some mail on board the flight was recovered after the accident and was annotated with "Retardé par suite d'accident aerien" ("delayed due to aviation accident"); further items of mail were found in 1951 and 1952. On 8 June 1978, a patrol of the French mountain police found letters and a sack at the foot of the Bossons Glacier. Recovered were 57 envelopes and 55 letters (without envelopes) and all but eight letters were forwarded to their original addressees.[4]

Sixteen years after the accident, Air India Flight 101 crashed in almost exactly the same spot under similar circumstances.[5] In September 2013, a climber discovered a cache of jewelry that is believed to have been aboard one of these two flights.[6]

English text of the monument at refuge du Nid d'Aigle [fr] in Mont-Blanc Massif

References

  1. ^ "MALABAR PRINCESS". Retrieved 17 June 2009.
  2. ^ a b c "The "Malabar Princess" Catastrophe". Archived from the original on 20 June 2009. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
  3. ^ "Accident description". Aviation Safety. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
  4. ^ Muir, Douglas N. (26 October 1978). "Letters Freed from a Glacier after 28 Years". Stamp Collecting. Vol. 131, no. 10. p. 1051.
  5. ^ Mendis, Sean (26 July 2004). "Air India: The story of the aircraft". Airwhiners.net. Retrieved 13 June 2013.
  6. ^ Pearson, Michael; Vandoorne, Saskya (26 September 2013). "Mysterious cache of jewels turns up atop French glacier". CNN.

45°49′59″N 6°51′35″E / 45.83306°N 6.85972°E / 45.83306; 6.85972

Allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_245
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