A climber found a trove of gems in the Alps amid a 47-year-old plane wreck. He gets to keep half.
By Jonathan Edwards
The Air India passenger jet from Mumbai prepared to land in Geneva on Jan. 24, 1966, but never made it. The Boeing 707 crashed near the summit of Mont Blanc in the French Alps, killing all 117 people aboard and scattering wreckage across the mountainside.
There, a box marked “Made in India” kept its secret for nearly a half-century.
Then, in 2013, a man in his 20s climbed atop a glacier and found the box. Inside, he discovered a trove of emeralds and sapphires worth a small fortune. The climber, whom authorities have not identified, turned his haul in to police.
On Friday — eight years later — authorities announced that, because their efforts to find passengers’ heirs had proved fruitless, the anonymous climber would split the treasure with Chamonix, a French village that sits on the country’s eastern edge and shares borders with Switzerland and Italy.
In total, the stones are worth about $169,000, Chamonix Mayor Eric Fournier said, according to the Guardian.
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I figure the vast majority of people will say "Sounds fair." And the small minority of chronic malcontents will scream "No! No! Justice demands. . . (whatever)!"
Great little personality test for your friends/family/the folks down at the bar.
