- Air India Flight 101
Infobox Airliner accident|name=Air India Flight 101
Date=January 24 1966
Type=Instrument malfunction
Site=Mont Blanc
Fatalities= 117
Injuries= 0
Aircraft Type= Boeing 707-437
Origin=Bombay
Destination=Geneva
Operator=Air India
Tail Number= VT-DMN
Passengers= 106
Crew= 11
Survivors = 0Air India Flight 101 was a scheduled
Air India passenger flight that crashed intoMont Blanc inFrance on the morning of24 January 1966 .Accident
On the 24th of January
1966 at 0702UTC , Air India Flight Number 101, a Boeing 707-437 called "Kanchenjunga" crashed on its regularroute fromMumbai (Bombay) toLondon viaDelhi ,Beirut andGeneva . Theplane was carrying 106passengers and 11crew members. It crashed intoGlacier des Bossons (Bossons Glacier) on theSouth West face ofMont Blanc inFrance . At 4807meter saltitude , Mont Blanc is thehighest summit inWestern Europe . There were no survivors. It was quickly determined that the pilot had made anavigational error while descending forlanding into Geneva.FLIGHT 101 – 2nd of two similar accidents:It was the second time such an
air disaster had occurred on that part of themountain , both crashes involvingaircraft operated byAir India . Earlier on 3rd of November1950 Air India Super Constellation called the "Malabar Princess," carrying 48 passengers and crew had crashed in almost exactly the same spotkilling all on board.equence of Events
The
flight to andtakeoff from Beirut wereroutine , except for afailure of the no. 2 VOR (VHF Omni-directional Radio Range). At 07:00GMT the pilot reported reaching FL190 to Geneva. He was told tomaintain that flight level "unless able to descend VMC (Visual meteorological conditions) one thousand on top". The pilotconfirmed this and added that they werepassing abeam Mont Blanc. The controller noted that the flight wasn't abeam Mont Blanc yet and radioed "you have 5 miles to the Mont Blanc", to which the pilot answered with "Roger ." Flight 101 then started to descend from FL190 until it struck the Mont Blanc at anelevation of 15585 feet.Passengers
The victims consisted of 106 passengers and 11 crew. One of the victims included
chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission DrHomi Jehangir Bhabha , who was on his way to Vienna. The remaining passengers were Indian nationals, 46 of whom weresailors and 6 were British citizens.Rescue Attempts
Rescue teams foundwreckage scattered on the south west side of the mountain, about 1,400ft (427 metres) below the summit. Gerard Devoussoux, amountain guide who was one of the first to arrive at thedisaster scene, said: "Another 15 metres (50ft) and the plane would have missed the rock. It made a huge crater in the mountain. "Everything was completely pulverised. Nothing was identifiable except for a few letters and packets."
Frenchauthorities radioed back the news that there was virtually no hope of survivors shortly after landing in the area. The search was eventually called off after badweather and poorvisibility hampered rescue efforts. The Boeing held 200monkeys in its cargo hold, meant for usage in medical laboratories. According to the rescuers, some of the monkeys had survived and were walking about in the snow.Investigation
The captain of the Air India Boeing 707, who was one of the airline's most
experienced pilots, had radioed thecontrol tower a few minutes earlier to report that his instruments were working fine and the aircraft was flying at 19,000ft (5,791 metres) - at least 3,000ft (914 metres) higher than the Mont Blanc summit."The commission concluded that the most likely
hypothesis was the following: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; theradar 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."Continuing Evidence
In the eighties, reports came in that pieces of aircraft were being found as the ice melted at the bottom of the Glacier. In both accidents, the two planes shattered into millions of pieces that littered the French and the Italian faces of Mont Blanc. For the last 20 years, the Bossons glacier spits out of its terminal tongue the remnants of the two accidents: bits of metal, wires, etc. It still remains one of France’s worst ever air accidents.
tatistics
* 16th loss of a Boeing 707
* 2nd worst accident involving a Boeing 707 (at the time)
* 9th worst accident involving a Boeing 707 (currently)
* 2nd worst accident in France (at the time)
* 5th worst accident in France (currently)Pop-Culture References
MOVIE: “
Amelie ” (2001) – A news report that pieces of an aircraft, which crashed into a glacier on top of Mont Blanc are emerging from the melting ice at the bottom of the mountain sparks an idea for main character Amelie. To ease an elderly neighbours life long pain of losing her one true love, Amelie forges a love letter which is supposed to have been recovered from the wreckage of the plane to give to the neighbour. [There is no specific reference to Flight 101 or "Malabar Princess".]References
*ICAO Circular Accident Digest 18-I
* [http://www.flightsafe.org FlightSafe]
* [http://www.montblanc.to Mont Blanc]
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