Eight years after they were discovered, a huge collection of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires hidden for decades on a glacier off France’s Mont Blanc has now been split between the climber who discovered them and local officials.
The precious stones were discovered by the mountaineer in 2013. They had been buried in a metal box aboard an Indian airliner that had crashed in the lonely landscape 50 years before.
“The stones have been shared this week” in two equal lots valued at around 150,000 euros ($169,000) each, Chamonix mayor Eric Fournier told AFP.
He said he was “very happy” that the events had come to a close, especially for the climber, whom he applauded for his “integrity” in reporting his discovery to authorities as required by law. In a Facebook post, town officials announced that two gemmology experts sorted and splitted the gems into two equal parts. The mountaineer received half of the money, while the town received the other half.
Chamonix officials announced that their portion of the treasure will be displayed at the recently expanded and restored Chamonix Crystals Museum. The new collection will be open for public from December 19.
In 1950 and 1966, two Air India planes crashed onto Mont Blanc.The plane crashed when the pilot incorrectly assumed that the plane had crossed the mountain’s summit and began to descend for landing, causing the plane to crash into the mountain. The ‘Kanchenjunga’ flight, operated by Air India, was flying from Bombay to London, with stops in Delhi, Beirut, and Geneva.
Climbers have consistently discovered wreckage, cargo, and human remains from the aeroplane throughout the years.
India seized custody of a bag of diplomatic mail from the Kangchenjunga, a Boeing 707 flight from Mumbai that crashed on the southwest face of Mont Blanc on January 24, 1966.
The catastrophe killed 117 people, including India’s nuclear pioneer, Homi Jehangir Bhabha.
Authorities suspect the expensive stones came from that aeroplane, which was flying from Mumbai to New York.