Indian Newspapers From 1966 Plane Crash Found on French Glacier

The newspaper copies were found by a local cafe-owner.

A cafe owner in France found Indian newspapers from 1966

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@d_jaishankar)

History has a strange way of surfacing, doesn't it?

Recently, copies of Indian newspapers from the 1960s, with headlines about Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister, have been discovered on Mont Blanc mountain's melting Bossons glacier, reported The Guardian.

These newspapers were onboard an Air India flight that crashed into the mountain 54 years ago - precisely at 8 am on 24 January, 1966. 177 passengers died in that plane crash.

According to The Guardian, the copies were discovered by Timothée Mottin. Mottin runs a cafe-restaurant called La Cabane du Cerro at an altitude of 1,350 metres. The cafe-restaurant is located above the french resport of Chamonix. The publication quoted Mottin saying that the newspapers had to be dried after they were discovered. He also told a french newspaper that every time he walks on the glacier with his friends, he discovers some remains from the crash.

Over the years, Mottin has collected such items and has them on display at his cafe. The newspaper copies he found will also become a part of this collection.

In 2012, a bag of diplomatic mail was also found on the mountain. It was stamped "On Indian Government Service, Diplomatic Mail, Ministry of External Affairs." In 2013, a French alpinist came across a metal box with the Air India logo on it. Inside the box, he found precious stones like emeralds, sapphires and rubies.

In 2017, human remains were found in the area.These are believed to have been from the same Air India plane crash. Alternately, they can also be from another plane crash, that of the 'Malabar Princess' in 1950.

(With inputs from The Guardian)