Air India Flight 245
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.
 VT-CQP, the aircraft involved in the accident in 1949 | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 3 November 1950 |
| Summary | Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT) in poor weather |
| Site | Mont Blanc |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Lockheed L-749A Constellation |
| Aircraft name | Malabar Princess |
| Operator | Air India |
| Registration | VT-CQP |
| Flight origin | Sahar International Airport, Bombay, India |
| 1st stopover | Cairo International Airport, Cairo, Egypt |
| 2nd stopover | Cointrin Airport, Geneva, Switzerland |
| Destination | London Heathrow Airport, London, United Kingdom |
| Passengers | 40 |
| Crew | 8 |
| Fatalities | 48 |
| Survivors | 0 |
The plane operating the flight was a named Malabar Princess, registered 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 crash 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 crash, 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]
References
- "MALABAR PRINCESS". Retrieved 17 June 2009.
- "The "Malabar Princess" Catastrophe". Archived from the original on 20 June 2009. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
- "Accident description". Aviation Safety. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
- Muir, Douglas N. (26 October 1978). "Letters Freed from a Glacier after 28 Years". Stamp Collecting. Vol. 131, no. 10. p. 1051.
- Mendis, Sean (26 July 2004). "Air India: The story of the aircraft". Airwhiners.net. Retrieved 13 June 2013.
- Pearson, Michael; Vandoorne, Saskya (26 September 2013). "Mysterious cache of jewels turns up atop French glacier". CNN.