On January 24, 1966, an Air India plane carrying 117 passengers went missing over the French Alps. The Boeing 707 was chartered from Mumbai (then Bombay) to New York.
In 2013, a Chamonix mountaineer unearthed a metal box containing nearly 100 precious stones — rubies, sapphires, and emeralds while climbing the Bossons Glacier on Mont Blanc. The man turned his findings over to the authorities. They determined that the box was from that ill-fated Air India crash. It would be eight years before the alpinist received the stones, as compensation for finding them and turning them in.
Jewels from the Air Indian crash. Photo: Wikipedia
It’s unclear if Indian and American officials could identify any rightful owners of the trove or any heirs — the jewels were probably en route to New York for selling.
According to Chamonix’s Mayor Eric Fournier, the mountaineer will share the gems 50-50 with local authorities. Both received the stones in lots worth $169,000 each.
“You can say the climber who made this find is someone very honest,” local gendarme chief Sylvain Merly said back in 2013. “He saw very well that what he had in his hands was something very valuable, realizing straight away that it was precious stones that had been very carefully wrapped. He was a mountaineer; he knew the history of the two plane crashes here and realized that this find was likely linked to those crashes.”
For years, the Bossons Glacier had spewed to the surface “all sorts of remnants” from the Mont Blanc plane crash. These have included newspapers, diplomatic mail, clothing, mechanical components, sheet metal, and human remains.
