Climber finds 50-year-old treasure lost in Indian air crash on Mont Blanc

Climber finds 50-year-old treasure lost in Indian air crash on Mont Blanc

mangaloretoday.com

Albertville, France, Sept 27 (Daily Mail): A French climber scaling a glacier off Mont Blanc got more than satisfaction for his efforts when he stumbled across a treasure trove of emeralds, rubies and sapphires that had been buried for decades.

The jewels, estimated to be worth up to 246,000 euros ($332,000), lay hidden in a metal box that was on board an Indian plane that crashed in the desolate landscape some 50 years ago.

 

 

Precious: Stephane Dan, crystal hunting guide, and Alexandre Pittin, mountaineer and crystal hunter, look at some of the minerals they found in the Mont Blanc massif

Over some 50 years the ice has carried the metal box nearly 10,000 feet to where it lay on the ice.

Police commander Sylvain Merly of Albertville Gendarmerie said: ’The young climber immediately understood that the precious stones had belonged to someone who died on the ice.

’He could have kept them for himself but instead he chose to bring them to us.’
 
The jewels most likely originated from an Air India flight from Bombay to New York that crashed in fog and windy conditions on 24 January 1966. All 117 passengers and crew were killed when the Boeing 707 437 collided with the mountain at 12,000 feet.

According to local legend this plane carried bag-loads of Indian gemstones in its belly. At the time the rumour sparked a gold rush during which bounty hunters found a monkey frozen in its cage.

Police in Bourg Saint Maurice believe that this is the flight that they originated from, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported.

However 15 years earlier another Indian plane, named Malabar Princess, crashed in a nearby spot on the mountain.

The Costellation flight was pulverized when it went down during a snowstorm in November 1950, killing 48 people on board including 40 Indian navy sailors returning to their ship.

 

Mountaineers on Mont Blanc regularly find items from the two plane crashes

Within the container are three bags of gems stamped with the words Made in India.

Police have confirmed that the jewels are Indian and are hunting the rightful owner. If no heirs are found the young climber will be entitled to half the treasure with the French state keeping the rest.

The second plane, which was flying from Bombay to New York, via Geneva and London, was carrying a number of wealthy Indians, including Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the father of India’s atomic programme. Last year another alpinist on the mountain discovered a bag of diplomatic mail, from the plane, stamped ’On Indian Government Service, Diplomatic Mail, Ministry of External Affairs’.

But thanks to its name, ’Malabar Princess’, a legend grew up around the first plane. Locals believed that that the the earlier flight had carried a Maharani and her treasure. In fact its only passengers were 40 Indian Navy sailors returning to their ship.


The climber turned the haul in to local police.

"This was an honest young man who very quickly realised that they belonged to someone who died on the glacier," local gendarmerie chief Sylvain Merly told AFP.

"He could have kept them but he preferred to give them to the police," Merly said, adding that the climber stumbled upon the box earlier this month and that some of the sachets containing the precious stones bore the stamp ’Made in India.’

French authorities are contacting their Indian counterparts to trace the owner or heirs of the jewels.

Under French law, the jewellery could be handed over to the mountaineer if these are not identified, Merly said.

 

Two Air India planes crashed into Mont Blanc in 1950 and in 1966. Climbers routinely find debris, baggage and human remains.

In September last year, India took possession of a bag of diplomatic mail from the Kangchenjunga, a Boeing 707 flying from Mumbai which crashed on the southwest face of Mont Blanc on January 24, 1966.

The crash killed 117 people including the pioneer of India’s nuclear programme Homi Jehangir Bhabha.