The fate of AI 101 Kanchenjunga VT - DMN is well known to many interested in Air India and to those who have studied India’s nuclear developments. Simply put, this commercial flight, a Boeing 707-437 operating between Bombay and New York via Delhi, Beirut, Geneva and Paris, took off without incident on January 23, 1966, and crashed early on the 24th during its approach to Geneva, slamming into the 15,700-foot-tall Mont Blanc on the French-Italian border. Strangely, the AI 101 crash occurred quite close—just 600 feet—to where the earlier crash involving the Air India 245 Malabar Princess happened in 1950! Both planes were approaching Geneva Airport and, during their descent, crashed, resulting in the deaths of 48 and 117 people. Among the passengers on AI 101 in 1966 was India’s nuclear scientist Homi Jehangir Bhabha, widely regarded as the "father" of India's nuclear program.
Mont Blanc's summit lies between Italy and France, and its ownership has long been disputed by the two countries. At flight level 190 (19,000 feet; 5,800 m), the crew was instructed to descend toward Geneva International Airport. Presumably, the pilot, Joe T D’Souza, believing he had already passed Mont Blanc, began to descend too early and collided with the Mont Blanc massif in France near the Rocher de la Tournette. All 106 passengers and 11 crew members were killed. If the plane had been just 125 feet higher, it would have cleared the mountain's peak. But it was, I suppose, just unfortunate.
When Tata-owned Air India began commercial flights with
Lockheed 749 Constellations in 1949, the first group of seven aircraft was
named after princesses: Malabar, Rajput, Mughal, Maratha, Himalayan, Bengal,
and Kashmir. Subsequently, the Rani series of super-constellations, Lockheed
L-1049s, with ten in total, were introduced in the 1950s. By 1960, Air India
had transitioned from propeller planes to jet aircraft, and the next eleven
Boeing 707s were named after mountains. VT-DMN was part of this series and was
named after Kanchenjunga, the third-highest mountain.
AI101’s CFIT – Controlled flight into terrain
The crash occurred at 7:02 on the western summit ridge of
Mont Blanc, at about 15,585’ at the Refuge Vallot on the Rochers de la
Tournette (Tournette Spur), on the French side, at an airspeed of 350 knots
(650 km/h). The last communication between Leo Schegg at Geneva ATC and Pilot
D’Souza is important.
06.58.54” 101: Geneva, 101 is approaching 210.
R: Air India 101, continue your descent to flight level 190.
06.59.02” 101:
101, recleared to 190
07.00.35” 101: 101 is approaching 190.
R: Roger, maintain unless you are able to descend VMC one
thousand on top.
43” 101:
OK, Sir, will do that. Descend one thousand on top. And I think we are passing
abeam Mont Blanc now.
48 R: You have five miles to the Mont Blanc.
55” 101:
Roger.
The aircraft wreckage, along with the bodies of the passengers and crew, was scattered across both sides of the mountain (Italian and French). Two engines were found on the French side, and two on the Italian side. The black box has not yet been recovered and is believed to have fallen onto the Miage Glacier on the Italian side. At 07:32:08, an Italian plane, 6029, reported seeing a large black cloud to the controller, presumably related to the crash.
Among the passengers were 46 sailors from SISCO – South
India Shipping Corporation, flying to board their new ship Chennai Perumal and
sail it home to India; 16 Belgians, including Baroness Degley from the
Belgian-India association; five Americans; six Britons; and a few others. Homi
Bhabha was the dignitary on the flight. Gianni Bertolli, Director of Air India
for Europe; G. V. Sivaswami, Operations Superintendent of Air India’s technical
operations; and James Cray, Chief Air Traffic Controller of Air India, were on
board. Several monkeys—around 15—were loaded into the hold, intended either for
a zoo or scientific research. It’s rumored that some monkeys survived the crash
and were even seen loitering around, but died later due to the intense cold.
Ted Robinson of Union Carbide, HG Shah, a student and French interpreter, Borowsky from UNESCO were some of the others.
Commander J.T D’Souza from Goa, with approximately 14800
flight hours, was a highly experienced Air India pilot who had crossed Mont
Blanc more than 50 times. He was the senior pilot who had accompanied (as
co-pilot while Shirodkar was the commander) Pope Paul VI and Jacqueline Kennedy
during their visits to India. With him was another highly decorated Air Force
pilot, Geoffrey Charles Wilks, from Calcutta, who held a Vir Chakra medal. The
Navigator was Karachi-born AM Asnani, while RC Barooah served as the flight
engineer. In addition to five male cabin attendants, M. Sahany and F. Eranee
were the air hostesses (Dora Lou had called in sick in Beirut and was replaced
by Ms. Eranee). Twenty passengers, including Bertoli and Bhabha, were to
disembark in Geneva, while fifty-four, including the 46 sailors, were scheduled
to go from Paris. G Bertoli and Bhaba knew each other;
Bertoli was, in fact, related to JRD Tata (his wife, Thelma, was JRD’s
sister-in-law) and was earlier a POW in an Indian camp following WW II.
Remember that this was the Cold War era. In India, after the
end of the 1965 Indo-Pakistani war and Pakistan's surrender, the Tashkent
Accord was signed by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri on January 10, after
which he mysteriously passed away the very next day. As American involvement in
Vietnam grew, Martin Luther King Jr. began his campaign, while 48-year-old
Indira Gandhi took over as Indian Prime Minister on that fateful day, receiving
the devastating news as she was being sworn in. In Western Europe, there was a
commotion starting January 17, when America lost an H-bomb (The Palomares
accident) over Spain following an air collision.
More trips up the glacier, this time with Italians, resulted
in the recovery of mail, personal effects, diplomatic pouches, and enough
debris to assist with the official investigation. The black box or FDR was not
recovered. Meanwhile, rumors about the involvement of an Italian air force
plane in the crash intensified.
It was at this point, after a general conclusion that it was, after all, a case of pilot error—just as the authorities had called off the search—and the feeling that the French authorities were doing little, that an expert mountaineer, Rene Desmaison, saw an opportunity to mount an expedition with Philippe Real of ORTF, the French broadcaster, to see if they could manage a scoop by climbing the Italian slopes in winter, a feat never done before.
The operation was named Operation Chabert. The team
discovered significant debris, including film from Italian Air Force turret cameras and pieces of Air Force aircraft metal that did not match commercial aircraft, especially the Boeing 707. This supported the theory that an
Italian military aircraft, possibly on patrol nearby, had collided with the 707
during its descent. As they descended with footage from the expedition and
collected debris in sacks, news of their activity spread, and the Italian police
waited to confront the team. All materials were seized, and the French team was
questioned. However, the evidence was inconclusive, and the story of Operation
Chabert faded into silence. By March 1966, France withdrew from NATO, and it’s
reasonable to believe the French had some reasons to blame NATO and their
aircraft for issues over their territory.
More people started to believe that an Italian air force
starliner had hit the 707. Among them was Jean Daniel Roche, who had often
climbed the glacier over the years to collect debris, scrap, and personal
effects, gathering many tons of scrap. Some of it was given away or sold by
Roche. He was not alone; many homes in the Chamonix valley began displaying
such crash memorabilia in their showcases.
The official report – Sept 1966
Although the report extensively discusses the ‘whiteout effect,’ where a pilot loses sight of the cloud-terrain barrier in an all-white environment and misjudges height, it concludes that the pilot's error was in calculating their location, despite a warning from the Geneva controller.
However, it also notes that the whiteout phenomenon, which is very dangerous
and removes any accurate perception of the outside environment and orientation,
likely worsened the situation.
It also affirmed - several missions enabled the
identification of the impact point, the identification and positioning of a
number of parts; in particular, it was established that the nose landing gear
strut was broken in compression from front to back, and that the two engines
examined by the investigators were operating very shortly before the impact and
that no other civilian or military aircraft was reported missing on the day and
at the time of the accident.
The conclusion was: The
pilot of the VT-DMN, who knew upon departure from Beirut that one of the two
VORs was out of service, incorrectly determined his position relative to Mont
Blanc and informed air traffic control of his estimate; the radar controller
noticed this error, correctly assessed the position of the VT-DMN, and provided
the aircraft with information that, in his opinion, should have allowed the
pilot to correct his position. Due to insufficiently precise phraseology, the
correction was not understood by the pilot, who, mistakenly believing he had
passed the mountain ridge and was still at a flight level providing a
sufficient safety margin relative to the summit of Mont Blanc, continued his
descent.
Ultimately, the thirteen on-site missions carried out by the gendarmes of the specialized high-mountain unit and the three expeditions conducted by the technical investigators enabled the examination of several
debris fragments. The conclusion after the investigation was that it was
definitely a crash into the mountain, not an explosion.
The official report also states that the pieces collected at
the accident site by journalists, which led to the development of a hypothesis
in the press about a collision between the Air India B.707 and an Italian
fighter jet above Mont Blanc, were all identified by technical investigators on
March 9 in Courmayeur as belonging to the crashed B.707. This ruled out the theory
that the Italian Air Force plane collided with the Air India plane.
Meanwhile, Art Robinson, the son of Ted Robinson, a passenger,
decided to investigate, as he disbelieved the official version, and also
because his distraught mother had taken her own life. Art arrived in Chamonix
in 1969 and, together with a climber named Claude Jaccoux, climbed the Italian
side and flew up to the North Face, where he spotted a body strapped to a
chair. It later turned out to be Sivaswami’s decapitated corpse. He left, concluding
he had done what he could, but believing there was another cause to the crash.
It was in 2013 that Gregory Douglas published salacious interviews
with Robert Crowley, a CIA staffer, on the clandestine and covert operations,
where a conversation mentions that Homi Bhabha and Shastri were victims of a
CIA plot. Readers must note here that the book “Conversations with the Crow is
considered to be mere allegations without any evidence, or in other words,
gossip.
Aftermath
The investigations included an Air India representative,
following which an official report was published and accepted by Air India. The
aircraft had been fully insured for approximately Rs 293 lakhs, and each
passenger should have received up to Rs 40,000. The crew was paid the following: D’Souza
1.17 lakhs, Wilks Rs 92,200, Asnani Rs 72,800, Barooah Rs 78,200, and all seven
cabin attendants Rs 40,000 each. I do not have details of what the passengers received.
The Tondriau case
Julian Tondriau's family, one of the Belgian passengers,
filed a case in 1968 that became a landmark example in carrier liability and
the use of the Warsaw Convention Articles. The courts did not award Tondriau
increased compensation but discussed the accident report at length, agreeing
that although it might have been pilot error, the pilot was not reckless.
Tragedy – the mariners
Strangely, 46 sailors were on the plane headed to Bremen
during the 1966 crash, while 40 were bound for Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1950
crash. Many of the sailors were from the state of Kerala, including Abdulla
Kutty, Chattu, Kunji, Kutty (2), Hassan, Jayarajan, Nambiar, John, Ibrahim,
Mohammed, Ramachandran, Shankarankutty, Umar, Ibrahim, and Usman. In total, the
remains of over 15 Malayali corpses are scattered on the Bossons glacier
overlooking the Chamonix valley. It’s unclear whether any of the 40 seamen from
1950 have ever been identified. From what I understand, SISCO, now part of
Essar Shipping, may have taken travel insurance for these passengers and paid
out claims in 1966. I will update the article once I learn more about them.
Cause Conclusions
Impact with an Italian Air Force Starliner - remains
possible due to the nature of debris collected by the French climbers. However,
it is also possible that there was an unreported crash in the past (between
1961-66), and the fragments collected may have come from that aircraft. The
official report states that experts had concluded that Air India 101 did not
collide with another aircraft.
CM Poonacha, replying to Biren Roy’s question (about news
reports on the collision) in the Indian Parliament, stated on 9th May 1966 - We
have verified them (rumors & reports), and we have definite proof to say
that there was not any collision so far as this aircrash is concerned.
CIA involvement – The idea of a bomb in the
hold is very unlikely. It’s quite improbable to plan the explosion exactly over
Mont Blanc, as Crowley suggested. While this could happen in theory, Homi Bhabha
boarded the plane on Jan 23rd, at the last minute, changing his
plans to board on the 24th. Additionally, attempting to assassinate India’s top
scientist right when a new Prime Minister was taking over would have risked
further alienating India from the US. Moreover, the CIA, Indian intelligence
agencies, and the two governments had been working closely from 1964 to 1967 to
monitor Chinese missile and nuclear activities by deploying nuclear-powered
ELINTs at Nandadevi and Nandakot (Operation HAT and Oaktree- see my articles linked under
references for details). Indian Naval Officer MS Kohli and other expert
mountaineers from India participated in these missions after training with CIA
operatives in the USA, and the collaboration to place the ELINT at Nandakot
continued well into 1967.
Pilot error – It is very difficult to believe
that an experienced pilot, assisted by an expert navigator and a second pilot,
could make a navigational error. Also, the VORs in a Boeing 707 are redundant,
so the failure of one does not really affect direction or course
determination. A sudden downdraft must
have caused the aircraft to plunge from its routine glide path and impact the
mountain. Experts opine that under such ‘wave’ conditions, a downdraft of 2,000
feet/min is not exceptional. Unfortunately, this seems to be the most plausible
scenario.
Aftermath
Interestingly, MS Kohli was invited in 1967 to attend a
mountaineers' conference in Chamonix. As you guessed, he climbed Mont Blanc
with two others and nearly lost their lives in a snowstorm, but arrived
back safely. During the ascent, they stopped at the Air India debris to pray
for the souls of Bhabha and others who perished. Kohli was quite friendly with
JRD Tata, and some years after his return, joined Air India, where he worked
for 19 years until it was time to hang up his boots and write many interesting
books.
References
Death in the Alps - Simon Akam, The Economist, Nov 18, 2019
Crash’s au Mont-Blanc: La fin des secrets? – Francoise Rey
Studies in International Air Law-selected works of Bin Cheng – Ed Chia-Jui Cheng
Homi Bhabha – A Life – Bakhtair Dadabhoy
Conversations with the Crow – Gregory Douglas
Maddy’s Ramblings – The
Nanda Devi Episode , Oak tree - Intrigues at Charbatia
As Francoise Rey implies, many more secrets will be
unearthed as the glacier melts and disgorges more debris and remains. I will
update this when it happens.
