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January 24, 1966. It was morning. Air India Flight 101 had already taken off for London from Bombay.
Explores the 1966 Air India Flight 101 crash that killed Homi Bhabha, examining its impact on India's nuclear program and conspiracy theories.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- The Air India Flight 101 crash significantly impacted India’s nuclear program by killing Homi Bhabha.
- There is strong speculation and conspiracy theories about foreign involvement, particularly by the CIA, in the crash.
- The deaths of key figures like Bhabha and Shastri within weeks of each other disrupted India’s nuclear ambitions.
- India’s nuclear program was developed under secrecy due to geopolitical pressures and the global non-proliferation framework.
- The true cause of the crash remains debated, with theories ranging from accident to assassination and mid-air collision.
What the video covers
- On January 24, 1966, Air India Flight 101 crashed into Mont Blanc, killing all 117 passengers including Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the father of India's nuclear program.
- Homi Bhabha was en route to a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency and was pivotal in India's nuclear ambitions, claiming India could build an atom bomb in 18 months.
- The crash occurred shortly after the death of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was also involved in advancing India's nuclear program, raising suspicions.
- No bodies, wreckage, or black box were recovered, fueling theories about the crash being an assassination rather than an accident.
- There are conspiracy theories suggesting the CIA orchestrated the crash to prevent India from becoming a nuclear power amid Cold War tensions and nuclear non-proliferation talks.
- The video covers Bhabha's scientific background, his collaboration with Nehru, and the political context including the India-China war and nuclear arms race.
- The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty negotiations aimed to prevent new nuclear states, with India’s nuclear ambitions seen as a threat to global balance.
- Alternative theories include a mid-air collision with an Italian fighter jet, supported by some evidence and investigations, though official reports deny this.
- The deaths of Bhabha and Shastri created a vacuum in India’s nuclear policy, delaying the country’s nuclear weapons development.
- The video questions whether these events were coincidences or part of a deeper conspiracy to halt India's rise as a nuclear power.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Flight 101 Crash
- 00:50Disappearance and Crash Details
- 01:50Impact of the Crash and Homi Bhabha's Death
- 02:44Homi Bhabha’s Scientific Legacy
- 04:23India’s Nuclear Ambitions and Political Context
- 05:31Deaths of Shastri and Bhabha and Their Impact
- 07:13Investigation Challenges and Missing Evidence
- 07:59Geopolitical Context and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
- 08:44Conspiracy Theories and Alternative Crash Theories
- 10:01Summary and Final Thoughts on the Crash
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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This aircraft was a Boeing 707 plane, with 117 passengers. And the command was controlled by Captain J.T. D'Souza.
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One of the most experienced pilots of Air India. According to the plan, there were supposed to be 3 stops in between.
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Delhi, Beirut, then Geneva, and finally London. The first 2 stops were successful. After the stopover in Beirut, the plane moved to Geneva.
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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.
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The highest mountain in Western Europe, Mont Blanc, was about 3,000 feet below. Geneva Control, Air India 101.
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After talking to the ATC, they started the landing procedure. Then, without any warning, the aircraft suddenly disappeared from the radar.
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When this happened, another plane was also flying nearby. Italy's Flight 6029. A few minutes after the Air India flight disappeared from the radar, at around 7:04 AM GMT, the Geneva Air Traffic Controller asked the Italian pilot if he could see anything near the Mont Blanc mountain.
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The pilot replied that at a height of 16,000 feet, he saw a black cloud.
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But that black "cloud" wasn't actually a cloud. It was the Air India aircraft. It had crashed into Mont Blanc, near the France and Italy border.
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After this crash, the debris of the plane was scattered over several kilometres. All 117 passengers on board had died.
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"High on the roof of Europe, only a few feet below the summit of Mont Blanc, 117 people met sudden death.
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The monarch of the Alps, in a few awesome seconds, snatched its victims when it was barely alive." Usually, this would be just a tragic story of a plane crash.
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Forgotten over time. But in this aircraft, there was a man whose death changed the entire future of India.
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Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the father of India's nuclear program. The man who openly said that India could make an atom bomb in just 18 months.
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The day the plane crashed, he was going to Vienna for a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
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With his death, India's dream of becoming a nuclear power in 18 months was over.
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So the question arises, was this plane crash just a coincidence? Many people believe that Homi Bhabha's plane crash was not an accident.
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That it was carried out by the US intelligence agency, the CIA. He was assassinated.
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What was surprising was that he wasn't the only person to have died that month.
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13 days before this, another person lost their life. That death adds more suspicion to this story.
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In today's video, let's understand the story in depth. In 1939, Homi Bhabha took a break from England and came to India.
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But at the same time, the Second World War broke out. Because of this, he couldn't return to England.
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Bhabha did a PhD from the famous Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University. The lab which was laying the foundation in quantum mechanics and particle physics.
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Do you remember the Bohr's Atomic Model taught in school? He worked with legends like Niels Bohr.
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He was nominated for the Nobel Prize five times. On the invitation of C.V. Raman, he joined the IISc of Bengaluru.
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And then he established a scientific system in India. In 1945, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
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In 1948, he became the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He believed that if India wanted to become a great power, and protect itself, we would have to make a nuclear bomb.
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For him, it was a question of India's self-respect. After independence, Bhabha started focusing on his dream.
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He joined hands with his close friend, Jawaharlal Nehru. Although, in the public eye, Nehru was always against building a nuclear bomb.
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But Bhabha quietly kept preparing for it. As the Cold War intensified, and relations between America and the Soviet Union deteriorated, Nehru was slowly convinced that India would need to make a nuclear bomb.
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He had told Bhabha that when he was ready to make a nuclear bomb, he should come and meet Nehru.
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In 1960, Bhabha started a reactor called the Cyrus with the help of Canada. It produced plutonium.
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The material that makes bombs. Then in 1962, the India-China war broke out. And 2 years later, China conducted a successful nuclear test.
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After that, support for the nuclear bomb in India strengthened. A few days after China's test, Homi Bhabha announced on All India Radio that to build 50 nuclear bombs it would cost only ₹100-₹150 million.
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In 1965, he repeated that if the government allowed, he could build a nuclear bomb in 18 months.
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But by then, Prime Minister Nehru had passed away. And the next Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was a Gandhian.
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He was completely against nuclear bombs. But Bhabha didn't give up. After a few months of efforts, he convinced Shastri.
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In December 1965, Lal Bahadur Shastri told Homi Bhabha to hasten the preparation for the nuclear test.
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Eventually, India's dream of becoming a nuclear power was coming true. They were very, very close to making it a reality.
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But then, suddenly, within a few weeks, everything fell apart. One month after being given the green signal, on 11th January 1966, PM Lal Bahadur Shastri passed away.
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The cause was reported to be 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.
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What tragic irony that within a few hours of reaching an agreement for peace, Mr. Shastri should die." People still raise questions on this death.
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And just 13 days after that, on Mont Blanc, in that plane crash, Homi Bhabha also left the world.
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Think about it, the two men who had decided the future of India's nuclear bomb, both died within two weeks.
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This program was so secret, there were no files documenting it. Apart from those two, no one in the government knew the details of what passed between the two.
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After these deaths, there was a vacuum in India's nuclear policy. Two deaths in 13 days, and a secret that died with them.
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So the question is, was it a coincidence? Or was it a deep conspiracy? To get to the answer to this question, we have to go back to the plane crash.
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Air India Flight 101. This crash was so terrible, that a crater was formed in the mountains.
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The plane was completely destroyed. It was so horrific that none of the dead bodies of Homi Bhabha or any other passenger was found.
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Even the wreckage of the plane could not be recovered, and due to the bad weather, the rescue operation had to be stopped after just one day.
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The most important thing in the investigation of any plane crash is the black box of the plane.
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Even that could not be recovered in this case. So think about it, no body, no wreckage, no black box.
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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 confession that shook everyone.
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It is important to understand who wanted to stop India from becoming a nuclear power?
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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 nuclear bombs.
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Right at this time, between 1965 and 1968, in Geneva, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, was in talks.
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The only purpose of this treaty was to stop any new country from making a nuclear bomb.
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According to the people who were making this treaty, India making a nuclear bomb could wreck this plan.
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Because then Pakistan would make its own bomb. And then Iran, Egypt, and the Middle East, and eventually every country would want one.
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The entire framework of non-proliferation could be destroyed. There's a theory that claims it was a CIA assassination.
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According to this, America didn't want countries like India to have nuclear bombs. And to stop this, Homi Bhabha was killed.
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When you read about Homi Bhabha, you'll see that one thing is mentioned repeatedly. He wasn't just using technology.
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He was making it from scratch. He was building the sc...
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So don't worry. Let's get to the confession that shook the story. And here comes the most shocking part of the story.
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Around 2008, a journalist named Gregory Douglas published a book called Conversations with the Crow.
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He had interviewed CIA officer Robert T Crowley for this. Crowley was not a common officer.
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He worked in CIA's Directorate of Plans. Known as the Department of Dirty Tricks. And Crowley's nickname was Crow.
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This book mentions a conversation from 05th July, 1996. In this, Crowley said that the CIA had blown up Homi Bhabha's plane with a bomb kept in the cargo hold.
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Crowley's logic was that India was allied with the Soviet Union, and India had started working on the atomic bomb.
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America didn't want India to have any nuclear bomb, because we could use it to attack Pakistan.
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In this book, Crowley called Homi Bhabha a genius, who could actually make a bomb.
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According to him, Bhabha was warned many times. But he didn't listen. He clearly said that no one could stop India from matching up to the other nuclear powers.
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Crowley said that Bhabha was going to Vienna to cause trouble. And then the bomb in the cargo hold of his plane exploded.
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Everyone fell into the mountains. And no evidence was left. After that, Crowley said something horrifying.
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He said that if they wanted, they could have blown apart the plane over the city of Vienna.
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But it would have caused a lot of damage. So instead of a big city, they decided to blow it up over a mountain.
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Crowley's claims do not end here. He said that Lal Bahadur Shastri was also killed by the CIA.
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Because he had permitted the making of the nuclear bomb. From this point we fast forward to many years later.
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2016; the glacier on Mount Blanc is melting due to climate change. Revealing the secrets this mountain has kept for decades.
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Once the ice melted a bit, Homi Bhabha's briefcase was discovered in 2016. It contained some top-secret documents.
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These documents were about China's nuclear weapons program, 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.
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These documents clearly confirm how worried India was about China's nuclear power. And a frightening incident also comes to light.
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In November 1950, Air India's Flight 245, Malabar Princess, crashed in the same area. All 48 people were killed in the crash.
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Two plane crashes of the same airline, on the same mountain. This made people doubt that something was wrong.
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Meanwhile, a different line of evidence was revealed. It was not pointing at a bomb, but at something in the sky.
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During the crash, the French authorities behaved strangely. Some of the wreckage from this Air India aircraft, had fallen towards Italian territory.
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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 them to stop the investigation, and to call the team back immediately.
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When the team returned, the authorities seized the wreckage they discovered on the mountain. The wreckage of this plane crash was also mysterious.
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One of the pieces bore the stamp 1st June, 1960. Whereas the Air India Flight 101 which crashed, the Boeing 707, came in service only in 1961.
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Apart from that, there was a piece made of yellow alloy. A piece that was camouflaged.
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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.
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And the ORTF team claimed that the Air India plane had a mid-air collision with another plane.
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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.
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And some other pieces. He claims that the Air India flight, collided with a secret Italian F-104G Starfighter jet.
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According to Roche, this fighter jet, on the Mont Blanc, was sent to spy on the French military installation.
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It would come every week to take pictures. And to avoid being caught, it would shut down his transponder.
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Friends, the transponder is the instrument that lets others know the location of an aircraft.
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Due to it being shut down, the Air India plane could not see it on the radar.
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And both of them collided. And after this crash, everything was covered up. In support of this new theory, Roche presented two important pieces of evidence.
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First, some film negatives he found on the glacier. These negatives contained pictures of the Mont Blanc landscape.
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The dates were from days leading up to the crash in January 1966. Roche said that these pictures were taken from the fighter jet.
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The second piece of evidence was a 25x12 cm twisted metal panel, that had USAF written on it.
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United States Air Force The thing is, the F-104G Starfighter was an American jet. Roche and his supporters point to the panel as solid proof, that the Air India plane had crashed into the US-made fighter jet.
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You might say that these are two different theories. One is the CIA assassination theory, and the other is the mid-air collision theory.
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But actually, both the theories are telling the same thing. That it wasn't an accident.
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What is the truth in these? I have always said, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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Let's examine these two theories closely. First, let's examine the CIA's confession. Once you investigate Gregory Douglas's background, it raises many doubts.
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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.
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The real man behind this was Peter Stahl, a far-right conspiracy theorist. He had a background in the business of fake Nazi memorabilia.
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He was accused of fabricating fake Nazi documents. And Evans wasn't the only one to point it out.
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Many years before this, in 1992, the famous writer Gita Sereny wrote in The Independent, that this Peter Stahl was circulating such secret documents that claimed that the Allies had saved several Nazi officers after the war.
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After an extensive investigation, Sereny concluded that Stahl was lying. The shocking thing is that this conspiracy about Homi Bhabha was not the first of its kind coined by Stahl.
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In 2002, he wrote a book called Regicide. In which he used the same formula.
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He claimed that He had a document of a recently deceased, senior CIA officer, which proves that CIA had assassinated John F Kennedy.
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Using a dead CIA officer's 'confession.' It was Stahl's old and tested pattern. The story of Homi Bhabha and Crowley matches this pattern.
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Now, let's come to the second theory, Mid-Air Collision. It is based on one piece of evidence.
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On 24th January 1966, an Italian F-104G Starfighter, crashed into an Air India plane, and crashed near Mont Blanc.
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But there is no such record in the Italian military records. A former Italian Air Force officer, David Cenciotti, went through the Italian military records to know more about this.
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He found no such record. On 24th January 1966, a fighter jet had suffered airframe damage.
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But that incident took place in the south of Rome. The next day, another Starfighter crashed.
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But that incident took place in Rome. Not near Mont Blanc. So the fighter jet that supposedly collided, there must be at least some record of it.
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The biggest advocate for this theory, Daniel Roche, had claimed that the plane was hit by a missile.
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And later, he came to this collision theory. Roche is not a crash investigator. He is a former footballer and businessman.
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And later, an aviation crashes enthusiast. We have counterpoints regarding both these theories, which disprove both these theories.
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But many of you might say that the CIA allegations had existed before Gregory Douglas published his book.
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So it possible that the fraudster took advantage of it and published a lie. But that doesn't mean that the CIA didn't do it.
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If a secret operation had taken place, couldn't it be possible that the Italian military had deliberately erased the records of the fighter jet?
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It is possible. But the thing is that we have no evidence of this. No record.
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There is no hint that this happened. All we have is an investigation report of this incident.
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As you can see on screen, the investigation report was finished in March 1967. And it was prepared by the French Inquiry Commission.
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According to this, many minor mistakes came together, and caused a major accident. The first mistake was during take off from Beirut, the navigation system of the aeroplane, VOR, had failed.
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VOR is the radio system, that tells the pilot the exact location of the plane.
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Exactly at 7 AM GMT, the pilot informed the Geneva Control that they had reached the altitude of 19,000 feet.
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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 1,000 feet above the clouds, until they could descend safely.
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"Air India 101, Geneva Control, maintain flight level 190. Remain at least 1,000 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.
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"Roger, maintaining flight level 190 until clear conditions. We are now at Mont Blanc." But the pilot was incorrect.
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The air traffic controller immediately knew that the plane had not reached Mont Blanc. He informed the pilot over the radio that Mont Blanc was still 5 miles away.
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"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.
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This was the point that the plane had come down from 19,000 feet. It was at an altitude of 15,500 feet, and they crashed into Mont Blanc.
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According to the Inquiry Commission, the real tragedy was the communication. Because the right words weren't used, the pilot misunderstood the correction.
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The pilot thought that they had crossed the Mont Blanc peak. And that they were still at a height that they would safely fly over the mountain.
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Because of this misunderstanding, they started the descent of the plane. Another thing proved to be deadly here.
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Near the peak of Mont Blanc, there was terrible white-out conditions. Everything looks white. It gets impossible to identify where the mountain ends, and the sky begins.
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According to this inquiry investigation, there was no bomb, no fighter jet, nor was there CIA involvement.
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Just a bad VOR and an incorrect estimate of the position. A misunderstood message, and a mountain hidden in the clouds.
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In a few seconds, 117 lives were lost. How much can we trust this report?
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The answer is that even the Indian government believed the report of the French Commission was reliable.
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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.
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But India successfully completed its first nuclear test, Operation Smiling Buddha in 1974. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi continued this effort.
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Even if the CIA tried to stop it, they were unsuccessful. India's first weaponised nuclear bomb was fully functional in 1998.
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32 years after the death of Homi Bhabha. This tells you the impact of the setback.
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Bhabha claimed he could do it in 18 months, after his death, it took us decades.
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Complicated conspiracy theories sound like spy films. Today, several web series and films promote such theories without any evidence.
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Whether it is the CIA assassination theory, or the mid-air collision theory. But without any concrete evidence, they remain theories and stories.
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All the solid evidence that has come forward about this incident, point to the same thing.
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That Flight 101 was a tragic accident. Exactly one year after Bhabha's death, India changed the name of his Atomic Centre of Trombay, to Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
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It still exists today. The man who left us in a flash on a mountain, the institution he built still beats at the core of India's nuclear heart.
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Today, India is part of a group of 9 countries that possess nuclear weapons. And because of this nuclear power, there are 25 operational reactors in India, that generate electricity.
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Approximately 3% of India's electricity comes from nuclear. And by 2047, the goal is to generate 100 gigawatts from nuclear power.
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The biggest fear about nuclear power is that there might be an accident. A repeat of the Chernobyl disaster.
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In a way, this fear is justified. If an accident were to happen, its impact will be so terrible, that it is hard to imagine.
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So now you can watch this video to know about the cause of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
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And what was done to avoid such disasters in the future. Don't forget to join the AI Bootcamp, use the link given in the pinned comment.
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Or you can click here to join. Thank you very much!
Topics:Homi BhabhaAir India Flight 101plane crashIndia nuclear programCIA conspiracyMont Blanc crashLal Bahadur Shastrinuclear weaponsCold Warnon-proliferation treaty
