Air India Flight 101
Boeing 707-437 · Controlled flight into terrain
From Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM) to London Heathrow Airport (LHR)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 117 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 117
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Boeing 707-437
- Flight
- AI101
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 707
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- VT-DMN
- Operator
- Air India
- Onboard fatalities
- 117
- Route
- From Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM)To London Heathrow Airport (LHR)
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Air India Flight 101 was a scheduled Air India passenger flight from Bombay (present-day Mumbai) to London, via Delhi, Beirut, and Geneva. On the morning of 24 January 1966 at 8:02 CET, on approach to Geneva, the Boeing 707 operating the flight accidentally crashed into Mont Blanc in France, killing all 117 people on board. Among the victims was Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the founder and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India.
The accident occurred just 200 m from where an Air India Lockheed 749 Constellation operating as Air India Flight 245 while on a charter flight had crashed in 1950.
Accident
Air India Flight 101 was a scheduled flight from Bombay to London; and on the day of the accident was operated by a Boeing 707, registration VT-DMN and named Kanchenjunga. The Pilot-In-Command was an 18-year veteran, Captain Joe T. D'Souza. After leaving Bombay, it had made two scheduled stops, at Delhi and Beirut, and was en route to another stop at Geneva. At flight level 190 (19,000 ft), the crew was instructed to descend for Geneva International Airport after the aircraft had passed Mont Blanc. The pilot, thinking that he had passed Mont Blanc, started to descend and flew into the Mont Blanc massif in France near the Rocher de la Tournette, at an elevation of 4750 m. All 106 passengers and 11 crew were killed.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
At the time, aircrew fixed the position of their aircraft as being above Mont Blanc by taking a cross-bearing from one VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) as they flew along a track from another VOR. However, the accident aircraft departed Beirut with one of its VOR receivers unserviceable.
The investigation concluded:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Air India Flight 101” (revision 1373933068, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: Air India Flight 101
- Article
- Air India Flight 101
- Revision
- 1373933068 · 2026-09-08 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4016228
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Air India Flight 101" (page 11660526, revision 1373933068)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.