Paris: A French treasure hunter has found a trove of jewellery, including bracelets and necklaces, on the ice of Mont Blanc belonging to passengers from an Air India plane that crashed on western Europe's highest peak half a century ago.
The find comes a year after a young mountaineer stumbled across a metal box containing 100 diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires valued at €240,000 (£193,000).
Daniel Roche, who has been scouring the mountain in search of objects for years, came across around a fresh set of 50 pieces of jewellery which the Bossons glacier had pushed to the surface.
"They were scattered around a big cone at the Plateau des Pyramides, as if they had been placed the previous day," he told Le Parisien. "There were bracelets, necklaces, pendants, gold chains, earrings." Like the other unearthed gems, Mr Roche said he believed the jewels came from Air India flight Kangchenjunga - a Boeing 707 flying from Mumbai to London which crashed on the southwest face of Mont Blanc on January 24, 1966. Some 117 people died in the crash, including the pioneer of India's nuclear programme, Homi Jehangir Bhabha.
Mr Roche, a former international yachtsman, has discovered a host of objects from the 1966 disaster and another - Air India's Malabar Princess, which crashed on 3 November, 1950 with 48 people on board - including a jet engine and human remains.
17/08/14 Henry Samuel/The Telegraph, UK
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The find comes a year after a young mountaineer stumbled across a metal box containing 100 diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires valued at €240,000 (£193,000).
Daniel Roche, who has been scouring the mountain in search of objects for years, came across around a fresh set of 50 pieces of jewellery which the Bossons glacier had pushed to the surface.
"They were scattered around a big cone at the Plateau des Pyramides, as if they had been placed the previous day," he told Le Parisien. "There were bracelets, necklaces, pendants, gold chains, earrings." Like the other unearthed gems, Mr Roche said he believed the jewels came from Air India flight Kangchenjunga - a Boeing 707 flying from Mumbai to London which crashed on the southwest face of Mont Blanc on January 24, 1966. Some 117 people died in the crash, including the pioneer of India's nuclear programme, Homi Jehangir Bhabha.
Mr Roche, a former international yachtsman, has discovered a host of objects from the 1966 disaster and another - Air India's Malabar Princess, which crashed on 3 November, 1950 with 48 people on board - including a jet engine and human remains.
17/08/14 Henry Samuel/The Telegraph, UK
