Air India Flight 245

The airplane hit the face of the Rocher de la Tournette at a height of 4,677 m (15,344 ft), on the French side of Mont Blanc.[2] Stormy weather prevented immediate rescue efforts; debris was located by a Swiss plane on 5 November, and rescue parties reached the site two days later.[2] There were no survivors. The last transmission from the aircraft, received by controllers at Grenoble and Geneva, was "I am vertical with Voiron, at 4700 meters altitude." at 10:43 a.m.

Some mail on board the flight was recovered after the crash and was annotated with "Retardé par suite d'accident aerien"; further items of mail were found in 1951 & 1952. On 8 June 1978, a patrol of the French mountain police found letters and a sack at the foot of the Bossons Glacier. Fifty seven envelopes and fifty five letters (without envelopes) were recovered and all bar eight letters were forwarded to their original addressees.[4] Sixteen years later, Air India Flight 101 crashed in almost exactly the same spot.[5] In September 2013, a climber discovered a cache of jewelry that is believed to have been aboard one of these two flights.[6]