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Glacier des Bossons

2010.08.30

August 26, 2010
Glacier des Bossons is one of the glaciers found in the Chamonix valley of Haute-Savoie département, south-eastern France. It is on the north-eastern side of the valley, close to the famous Aiguille du Midi.
Glacier des Bossons, back on the sixteenth century, was described as the most perilous and deadly of the entire valley's ice falls. During this period and at each glacial expansion, the folk of Chamonix called upon the local bishops to exorcise the demons in the glacier and stop it from devouring crops, forests and habitations. A century later, the glacier would reach its crux. During this long period of expansion, huge blocks of granite would become trapped in the descent of the ice flow. One of these blocks would destroy an entire barn house in the village of the Mont. Serac from the final tongue of the glacier broke away and covered crops, streams following from the glacier flooded several acres of farmland; the valley's inhabitants are certain that the glacier will finally cut the valley in half. At the end of seventeenth century the glacier begins to retreat, however unnoticeable, at the rate of 200-300 meters horizontally a year.
Once again, at the beginning of the eighteenth century the Glacier des Bossons expands, reaching again the cultivated fields and forests threatening the community. Terrified, the residents deal with the threat as they did in the past. A prayer procession leading to the foot of the glacier is culminated by the erection of a large cross at the edge of the moraine where it met with the ice. This cross stayed in place for almost 100 years and served as a marker for glacial movement.
By the end of the eighteenth century, all the alpine glaciers begin a long and remarkable recession, stimulated by a series of warm spring and summer seasons.
On November 3, 1950, an airplane from the Air India fleet, the "Malabar Princess," covering the Bombay-London route begins its descent to Geneva, where it passes on stop-over. Everything has gone as planned since take-off in Cairo at 2:00 a.m. The British commandant Alan Saint knows the route by heart. The airship is a Constellation, a four-motor propeller plane. There were 48 passengers aboard.
At 10:43 a.m., the control towers at Grenoble and Geneva receive the report, "I am vertical with Voiron, at 4700 meters altitude." Then nothing. The plane never landed.
The "Malabar Princess" hit the face of the Rochers de la Tournette (4677m) on the final ridge of the Mont Blanc.
Stormy weather held back a rescue search until November 5, when the clouds broke and a Swiss plane spotted the debris littering the French face of the summit. If the plane had been just 30 meters to the West, the accident would have been avoided. There were no survivors.
The exact causes of the accident were never clarified. An approaching altitude too low? A problem with the plane controls? The storm, the low visibility and high winds certainly played a role in this catastrophe.
On January 24, 1966, a Boeing 707 of the Air India fleet continues on a scheduled flight between Bombay and New York by way of Beirut, Geneva and London. There are 117 passengers aboard, including 46 sailors and Homi Bahabha, the father of the Indian nuclear program. The pilot, Captain J.T. Da Souza, is an experienced aviator.
The Boeing 707 exits the Milan radar reading to be taken in charge by Geneva. The plane is at 6200 meters high when it demands authorization to change altitude. At 8:00 a.m., all contact is lost.
Rescue operations had profoundly evolved with the usage of the helicopter. After rapidly arriving on the site of the accident, the rescuers do not find any surviving passenger. The Boeing held 200 monkeys 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.
Sixteen years after the "Malabar Princess," the "Kanchenjunga," a plane from the same fleet of Air India, crashes at almost the exact spot.