A man with a peculiar hobby has claimed he found body parts of passengers who died in one of two Air India plane crashes from more than 50 years ago in the French Alps, AFP reported on Friday. Daniel Roche, who has spent years looking for remains in the Bossons Glacier on the Mont Blanc peak, made the discovery on Thursday.
Roche found a human hand and the upper part of a leg. “I had never found any significant human remains before,” he said.
In 1950, an Air India flight carrying 48 people had crashed in the French Alps. In January 1966, an Air India Boeing 707 heading to New York from Mumbai had crashed near Mont Blanc’s summit. All 117 people on board had died.
Roche said the remains could be of a female passenger from the 1966 crash. He also discovered one of the plane’s four jet engines (pictured above).
The aviation enthusiast contacted local emergency services in the Chamonix Valley on making the discoveries, which will now be examined by experts.
“These remains are probably not from the same person,” said Stephane Bozon, a local official. “They are probably from passengers, but between the two aircraft, it is difficult to say.”
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