 Crash site of Flight 101 | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | 24 January 1966 |
| Summary | Controlled flight into terrain |
| Site | Mont Blanc massif, France 45°52′40″N 06°52′00″E / 45.87778°N 6.86667°E |
| Aircraft | |
 A similar Air India 707 | |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 707-437 |
| Aircraft name | Kanchenjunga |
| Operator | Air India |
| IATA flight No. | AI101 |
| ICAO flight No. | AIC101 |
| Call sign | AIRINDIA 101 |
| Registration | VT-DMN |
| Flight origin | Sahar International Airport, Bombay, India |
| 1st stopover | Delhi International Airport, New Delhi, India |
| 2nd stopover | Beirut International Airport, Beirut, Lebanon |
| Last stopover | Geneva International Airport, Geneva, Switzerland |
| Destination | Heathrow Airport, London, United Kingdom |
| Occupants | 117 |
| Passengers | 106 |
| Crew | 11 |
| Fatalities | 117 |
| Survivors | 0 |
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 707-437 operating the flight accidentally crashed into Mont Blanc in France, killing all 117 people on board. Among the victims was Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the founder and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India.
The accident occurred just a few hundred feet away from where an Air India Lockheed 749 Constellation operating as Air India Flight 245 while on a charter flight, had crashed in 1950.[1]