The Plane Crash That Changed India's Future | Homi Bhabha | Dhruv Rathee

January 24, 1966. It was morning. Air India Flight 101 had already been booked for London from Bombay.

This aircraft is a Boeing 707 plane, with 117 passengers. And the command is controlled by Captain JT D'Souza. One of the most experienced pilots of Air India.

According to the plan, there will be 3 stops in between. Delhi, Beirut, then Geneva, and finally London. The first 2 stops are successful.

After the stopover in Beirut, the plane moved to Geneva. It was a few minutes late. At 7 am GMT, Captain D'Souza told Geneva Air Traffic Control that their aircraft was at an altitude of 19,000 feet.

The highest mountain in Western Europe, Mont Blanc, was about 3,000 feet above. Geneva Control, Air India 101. After talking to the ATC, they started to take the plane down.

Then, without any warning, the aircraft suddenly disappears from the radar. When this happened, another flight was also present in the sky. Italy's Flight 6029.

A few minutes after disappearing from the radar of Air India, at around 7. 04 pm, the Geneva Air Traffic Controller asked the Italian pilot if he could see anything near the Mount Blanc mountain. The pilot replied that at a height of 16,000 feet, he saw a black cloud.

But that black cloud was not a cloud. It was the same aircraft of Air India, which was stationed at the border of France and Italy. It had crashed into Mount Blanc.

After this crash the pieces of the plane spread for many kilometers All 117 passengers on board died High on the roof of Europe only a few feet below the summit of Mont Blanc 117 people met sudden death The monarch of the Alps in a few awesome seconds snatched its victims when it was barely alive. Usually, this is just a tragic plane crash story. Which is forgotten over time.

But in this aircraft, there was a man whose death changed the entire future of India. Homi Jahangir Bhabha, the father of India's nuclear program. The man who openly said that India could make an atom bomb in 18 months.

The day the plane crashed, he was going to Vienna for a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. With his death, India's dream of becoming a nuclear power in 18 months was over. So the question arises, was this plane crash just a coincidence?

Many people believe that the Homi Baba plane crash was not an accident. It was done by the US intelligence agency, the CIA. They were killed.

What was surprising was that the dead were not alone. 13 days before them, another major death took place. A death that deepened the story.

Let's understand the story in depth, in today's video. In 1949, Homi Bhabha took a break from England and came to India. But at the same time, the Second World War broke out.

Because of this, he couldn't return to England. Bhabha did a PhD from the famous Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University. where quantum mechanics and particle physics were being kept at the core.

Do you remember the Bohr's Atomic Model taught in school? He worked with legends like Niels Bohr. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize five times.

On the invitation of C. V. Raman, he joined the IISC of Bengaluru.

And then he established the entire scientific system of India. In 1945, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. in 1948, he became the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

He believed that if India wanted to become a great power, and save itself, he would have to build a nuclear bomb. For him, it was a question of the self-respect of India. After his independence, Baba started focusing on his dream.

He joined hands with his close friend, Jawaharlal Nehru. Although, in the public eye, Nehru was always against building a nuclear bomb. But Baba kept quietly preparing for it.

As the Cold War grew, and relations between America and the Soviet Union deteriorated, Nehru was slowly convinced that India would need to make a nuclear bomb. He had told Baba that when he was ready to make a nuclear bomb, he could come and meet him. In 1960, Baba started a reactor called the Cyrus with the help of Canada.

It produced plutonium. The material that makes bombs. Then in 1962, the India-China war broke out.

And after 2 years, China conducted a successful nuclear test. Since then the voices supporting the nuclear bomb in India had increased even more louder A few days after the China test Homi Bhabha told All India Radio that the construction of 50 nuclear bombs would cost only 10-15 crore rupees. In 1965, he repeated that if the government allowed, they could build a nuclear bomb in 18 months.

But until then, Prime Minister Nehru was no longer in power. And the Prime Minister after Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was a Gandhian. He was completely against nuclear bombs.

But Baba didn't give up. After a few months of efforts, he convinced Shastri. In December 1965, Lal Bahadur Shastri told Homi Baba to prepare for the nuclear test.

Suddenly, India's dream of becoming a nuclear power was coming true. And this reality was very, very close. But then, suddenly, within a few weeks, everything was shattered.

One month after the green flag was shown, on 11 January 1906, the death of PM Lal Bahadur Shastri was suddenly reported as a heart attack. In London, flags fly at half-mast in mourning for India's Prime Minister, who died of a heart attack in Tashkent. What tragic irony that within a few hours of reaching an agreement for peace, Mr Shastri should die.

This was a death that raised questions. And just 13 days after that, on Mont Blanc, in that plane crash, Homi Baba also left the world. Think about it, those two men who had decided the future of India's nuclear bomb, both had died within two weeks.

And the secrecy of this program was so high, that no file related to it was made. Apart from those two, no one in the government knew that What exactly happened? After these deaths, India's nuclear policy becomes a vacuum.

Two deaths in 13 days, and a secret that went with both. The question was, was it a coincidence? Or was it a deep conspiracy?

To find out the answer to this question, we have to go back to the plane crash. Air India Flight 101. This crash was so terrible, that it turned into a big pit in the mountains.

The plane was completely destroyed. The condition was, that the dead body of the homey baba or any other passenger was not found. The wreckage of the plane was not recovered, and due to the bad weather, the rescue operation had to be stopped after just one day.

The most important thing in the investigation of any plane crash is the black box of the plane. That was also not found anywhere in this case. So think about it, no body, no wreckage, no black box.

There was only one mountain that had swallowed all the evidence. And in the midst of this silence, after many decades, a man came forward, with a name that shook everyone. It is important to understand that who wanted to stop India from becoming a nuclear power?

In 1945, America was the only country with a nuclear bomb. But by 1965, the Soviet Union and China, along with many other countries, had already had bombs. Right at this time, between 1965 and 1968, in Geneva, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, was in talks.

The only purpose of this treaty was to stop any new country from making a nuclear bomb. According to the people who were making this treaty India nuclear bomb making could destroy this entire plan Because after that Pakistan would then make its own bomb And then Iran Egypt and the Middle East and the entire country. The entire framework of non-proliferation could be destroyed.

There's a theory called the CIA assassination theory. According to which, America didn't want a nuclear bomb from countries like India. And to stop this, Homi Bhabha was killed.

In the entire story of Homi Bhabha, one thing is repeatedly mentioned. That they were not just using technology. They were making it from scratch.

The entire scientific system was being built by themselves. And even today, this is the real difference. Between the creators and the users.

Most people don't know that today, with the help of AI, without a technical background, it became possible to make websites, smartphone apps, and games. And this is to teach you. Now, after the AI Masterclass, I am bringing you the AI Bootcamp.

This is the first time this is happening. It is a 3-hour live class, where I will meet an alumni of IIT Bombay, and teach you how to make your own apps and games with the help of AI. No coding experience is required, but we will teach you the basics of software like VS Code and Python.

With the help of AI, we will teach you how to make games like this. This will be a live walkthrough with only one goal. that after attending this session, you will not only be able to create your own app, but also be able to release it.

The first session of this app is going to be held on 5th July, and for this level of upskilling, it is at a very affordable cost. So go and join now, the link to it is in the pinned comment below, or in the QR code. And if you can't attend at the exact time, you can watch the recording for the next 7 days.

So don't worry. Let's get to the confession that shook the story. And here comes the most shocking part of the story.

Around 2008, a journalist named Gregory Douglas published a book called Conversations with the Crow. He had spoken to CIA officer Robert T. Crowley.

Crowley was not a common officer. He worked in the CIA Directorate of Plans. The Department of Dirty Tricks.

Crowley's nickname was Crow. A crow. In this book, there's a story from 5th July 1996, in which Crowley says that the CIA had blown up Homi Bhabha's plane with a bomb in its cargo hold.

Crowley's logic was that India was allied with the Soviet Union, and India had started working on the atomic bomb. America didn't want India to have any nuclear bomb, because they could use it in Pakistan and attack India. In this book, Crowley told Homi Bhabha a genius, who could actually make a bomb.

According to him, Baba was warned many times. But he didn't listen. He clearly said that no one in India could stop the arrival of other nuclear powers.

Crowley said that Baba was going to Vienna to cause trouble. And then the bomb in the cargo hold of his plane exploded. Everyone fell into the mountains.

And no evidence was left. After that, Crowley said something that would make people cry. He said that if he wanted, he could have flown the plane over the city of Vienna.

But it would have caused a lot of damage. So instead of a big city, he decided to make it fall on a high mountain. Crowley's claims do not end here.

He said that even Lal Bahadur Shastri was killed by the CIA Because he had allowed the construction of a nuclear bomb From this point we fast forward many years In 2016 the glacier on Mount Blank is melting due to climate change The secret that this mountain has kept hidden for decades, slowly began to melt again. Due to the melting ice, a briefcase of Homi Baba was revealed in 2016. It contained some top-secret documents.

These documents were the documents of China's nuclear weapons program, about their defence capabilities and foreign policies. One document clearly states that by mid-1967, China would have a nuclear missile with a range of 1,000 miles. These documents clearly confirm how worried India was about China's nuclear power.

And a frightening incident also comes to light. In November 1950, Air India's Flight 245, Malabar Princess, crashed in the same area. All 48 people were killed in the crash.

Two plane crashes of the same airline, on the same mountain. This made people doubt that something was wrong. Meanwhile, a different line of evidence was revealed.

It was not pointing at a bomb, but at something in the sky. During the crash, the French authorities were very strange. Some of the air plane wreckage of Air India, had also fallen towards Italy.

But Italy was not involved in this investigation. When the French public broadcaster ORTF's team reached the Italian side, the French Interior Minister angrily called the head of ORTF, and ordered to stop the investigation, and to call the team back immediately. When the team returned, the authorities seized the pieces found on the mountain.

These pieces of the plane crash It was a big mystery. On one piece, there was a stamp of 1 June 1960. Whereas the Air India Flight 101 crash, the Boeing 707, was in service in 1961.

Apart from that, there was a piece made of yellow alloy. A piece that was camouflaged. According to the ORTF team, these pieces were not from the Air India plane.

The French authorities' attitude created a suspicion that something was being hidden. And the ORTF team claimed that the Air India plane had a mid-air collision with another plane. That means two planes collided here, not one crash.

In 2018, a French wreckage collector, Jean-Daniel Roche, found the jet engine of the Air India plane near Mont Blanc. And some other pieces. He claims that the Air India flight, collided with a secret F-10-4G Starfighter jet in Italy.

According to Roche, this fighter jet, on the Mont Blanc, to spy on a French military installation. And he would come every week to take pictures. To avoid being caught, he would shut down his transponder.

Transponder is the same instrument that lets any other aircraft know the position of someone. Due to the shut down, the Air India plane was not visible on the radar. And both crashed.

And after this crash, everything was covered up. In support of this new theory, Roche presented two important evidence. First, some film negatives.

that they found on the glacier. These negatives contained pictures of the Mont Blanc landscape. The dates of the crash of January 1966, were a few days earlier.

Roche said that these pictures were taken from the same fighter jet spy camera The second evidence was a 25 by 12 cm twisted metal panel on which it was written USAF United States Air Force The thing is, the F-10-4G Starfighter was an American jet. And the panel was the solid proof, that the Air India plane, had crashed into the US-made fighter jet. You might say that these are two different theories.

One is the CI assassination theory, and the other is the mid-air collision theory. But actually, both the theories are telling the same thing. That it wasn't an accident.

What is the truth in these? I have always said, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Let's examine these two theories closely.

First, let's examine the CIA's confession. As soon as you reveal Gregory Douglas's background, many doubts arise. The famous historian Richard Evans, in his book, The Hitler Conspiracies, tells us, that Gregory Douglas was actually one of the many fake names of this man.

The real man behind this was Peter Stahl, a far-right conspiracy theorist, whose background was in the black business of fake Nazi memorabilia. And who was accused of leaking fake Nazi documents. And this wasn't just caught by Evans.

Many years before this, in 1992, the famous writer Gita Sereny wrote in The Independent, that this Peter Stahl was spreading such secret documents that claimed that the Allies had saved the great Nazi officers after the war. After a long period of time, Serenity clearly concluded that Stahl was lying. The shocking thing is that this story of Homi Baba was not the first such disclosure of Stahl.

In 2002, he wrote a book called Regicide. In which he used the same formula. He claimed that He had a document of a senior CIA officer, which proves that CIA had killed John F.

Kennedy. It was a big statement of the assassination of a dead CIA officer. It was an old and tested pattern of the style.

The story of Homi Baba and Crowley is also based on this. Now, let's come to the second Mid-Air Collision Theory. The complete evidence is based on one thing.

On 24th January 1966, an Italian F-104G Starfighter, crashed into an Air India plane, and fell near Mont Blanc. But there is no such record in the Italian military records. A former Italian Air Force officer, David Sensiotti, broke the Italian military records on this.

And found that there was no such record. On 24th January 1966, the airframe damage of a fighter jet did happen. But that incident took place in the south of Rome.

The next day, another Starfighter crashed. But that incident took place in Rome. Not near Mont Blanc.

So the fighter jet that is being talked about, must have at least a public record of it. The biggest face of this theory, Daniel Roche, had claimed that the plane was hit by a missile. And later, he came to this collision theory.

Roche is not a crash investigator. He is a former footballer and businessman. when he became an enthusiast of the aviation crashes.

We have counterpoints regarding both these theories, which disprove both these theories. But many of you might say that the CIA case was going on before the book of Gregory Douglas. So it possible that the fraudster took advantage of it and lied But that doesn mean that the CIA didn do it If a secret operation had taken place in the same way it is not possible that the Italian military had deliberately erased the records of their fighter jets.

It is possible. But the thing is that we have no evidence of this. No record.

There is no hint that this happened. All we have is an investigation report of this incident. On the screen, this investigation report was completed in March 1967.

And it was prepared by the French Inquiry Commission. According to this, many small mistakes were made, and a major accident occurred. The first problem during the flight from Beirut, was the VOR, the navigation system of the aeroplane.

VOR is the radio system, that the pilot can use to find out where his plane is. At 7 in the morning, the pilot told the Geneva Control that they had reached 19,000 feet. As you saw in the beginning of the video.

Geneva Control, Air India 101, maintaining flight level 190. The controller replied that they should remain at this height until they could not descend from the clouds, 1000 feet above the clouds. Air India 101, Geneva Control, maintain flight level 190.

Remain at least 1000 feet above the cloud until clear conditions establish for descent. The pilot confirmed this, but also said that their plane was passing by Mont Blanc. Roger, maintaining flight level 190 until clear conditions.

We are now at Mont Blanc. But the pilot was not telling the truth. The air traffic controller immediately said that the plane had not reached Mont Blanc.

He told the pilot on the radio that Mont Blanc was still 5 miles away. Air India 101, you have approximately 5 miles remaining to Mont Blanc. The pilot replied in one word, Roger.

And then he started to lower the plane. This was the point that the plane had come down from 19,000 feet. At an altitude of 15,500 feet, they collided with the Mont Blanc.

According to the Inquiry Commission, the real tragedy took place in the communication. Due to the lack of the right words, the pilot misunderstood the correction. The pilot thought that they had crossed the Mont Blanc peak.

And that they were still at such a height that they would safely leave the mountain. And with this misunderstanding, they started to take the plane down. And here, another thing proved to be very dangerous.

near the peak of Mont Blanc, those terrible white-out conditions. The whole area was white. It was impossible to identify where the mountain was ending, and where the sky was starting.

According to this inquiry investigation, there was no bomb, no fighter jet, nor was there a CIA. Just a bad VOR and a wrong guess of the position. A wrongly understood message, and a mountain hidden in the clouds.

In a few seconds, 117 lives were lost. How much can we trust this report? The answer is that even the Indian government believed the report of the French Commission to be true.

And included it in its official report. There is no doubt that the death of Homi Bhabha was a huge setback for India's nuclear program. But India successfully completed its first nuclear test, Operation Smiling Buddha in 1974.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi continued this effort. Even if the CIA tried to stop it, it was unsuccessful. India's first weaponized nuclear bomb was launched in 1998.

32 years after the death of Homi Bhabha. You can guess the setback from this. The work that Bhabha was claiming to complete in 18 months took decades for the country Complicated conspiracy theories sound like spy films And today that the or the mid-air collision theory.

But without any concrete evidence, these theories and stories remain. All the solid evidence that has come forward about this incident, point to the same thing. That Flight 101 was a tragic accident.

Exactly one year after the death of Baba, India changed the name of the Atomic Centre of Trombe, and named it as Baba Atomic Research Centre. Which is still standing there today. The man who left for a mountain in a flash, its foundation still beats like the heart of India's nuclear heart.

Today, India is part of those 9 countries that possess nuclear weapons. And because of this nuclear power, there are 25 operational reactors in India, that generate electricity. Approximately 3% of India's electricity comes from nuclear.

And the goal by 2047 is to get 100 gigawatts of nuclear power. The biggest fear about nuclear power is that there might be an accident. so that the Chernobyl disaster doesn't happen again.

If we look at it in a way, this fear is justified. If an accident happens, its impact will be so terrible, that it is hard to imagine. So now you can understand after watching this video, why the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened.

And what was done to avoid such disasters in the future. Don't forget to join the AI Bootcamp, the link is pinned in the comments below. Or you can click here to join.

Thank you very much! Thank you.