French mountain climber finds precious gems

Mountaineer makes momentous find - 10th January 2022

An alpinist who stumbled upon a treasure trove of emeralds, rubies and sapphires that had been buried for decades in the snow and ice of France's highest summit, Mont Blanc, has now recouped half of the find.

The anonymous mountaineer uncovered the metal box housing the prized gemstones in 2013, after coming across it by chance. It's widely accepted that the jewels must have been owned by a passenger on board a flight that had crashed headlong into the mountainside around five decades earlier.

There have been two Air India plane collisions on Mont Blanc, the first being in 1950 and the second in 1966, with a human cost of 48 and 117 lives respectively. The treasure almost certainly derives from the second doomed flight, which was en route from Mumbai to New York.

Since that fatal collision, human remains and baggage contents have been found scattered on the mountain's craggy slopes. A few years ago, a diplomatic bag containing confidential government mail from India came to light, which included newspapers, calendars and some private correspondence dated 1966. Indian scientist and pioneer of India's nuclear programme, Homi J Bhabha was one of the victims of this disaster.

The individual was commended at the time for handing over the precious find to police authorities, and in doing so, abiding by French law. However, having failed in its endeavour to make contact with potential relatives of the relevant owner in India, French officials have awarded hundreds of the precious gemstones – amounting to fifty per cent of the total – to the climber who’d dutifully turned them in.

The remaining half has been allocated to the local authority in Chamonix, a town near to the site of the discovery. The mountaineer received an official pat on the back from Eric Fournier, mayor of Chamonix, for his integrity in surrendering the treasure to police authorities.