Jean Voruz from Lausanne is one more of our growing tribe of Air-India fans.

Voruz presenting to the India Chapter of the RPSL
in Mumbai on 24 September 2016

Jean Voruz has spent many years studying the crash of the Malabar Princess (VT-CQS). He is an amateur philatelist, and has put together many outstanding exhibits on the early postal history of Geneva, and other interesting subjects. His business card reads AEP, AP, AIJP, CCNY, CEPL, CMC, CPhH, GPC, RPSL. There is a very chilled beer waiting at home for any of you can decipher all these for me.

The Royal Philatelic Society, London (RPSL) has an India chapter that meets regularly and brings philatelists together for very interesting get-togethers and discussions around the hobby.

Organised by the young and energetic Markand Dave, the Mumbai meeting on 24th September had a surprise visitor.

Jean Voruz, an amateur philatelist actually flew down all the way from Geneva for the weekend to speak with us about the crash of the Malabar Princess. This is the same aircraft that was used by the airline on the maiden voyage from Bombay to London, via Cairo and Geneva on 8 June 1948.

As a young man, he grew up near Chamonix and developed a passion for Alpine hiking. Here on the Bossons glacier, he first heard of the 1950 crash of the Air-India International flight from Bombay to London as it was descending to land at Geneva. Unfortunately, there were no survivors, but the cold weather, and gradual descent of the glacier ensured that the wreckage was remarkably well preserved, and new discoveries are made until this day, and new finds will continue to surface for many years.

Mail from the Malabar Princess wreckage, found in September 1951, and handed over to the Police at Chamonix with their violet octagonal cachet dated 12 Sept 1951 and additional blue postal cancellation at Geneva dated 17.IX.51 (image courtesy: Jean Voruz).

He had our complete attention during his entire talk which included a power-point presentation, and was followed by a lively discussion. Voruz also spoke about the 1966 Kanchenjunga accident that occurred almost at the same spot, and about books and theories that continue to circulate about the incident. A very large quantity of mail was recovered salvaged from the Malabar Princess wreckage, and has been well documented in Nierinck. Recent finds include a large lot of about 75 letters by a young Scottish student in July 2010, and the trouble this young lady took in finding out the descendants of the various addressees and sending the mail to them.

Left to Right: Abhishek Bhuwalka, Markand Dave and Jean Voruz in Mumbai.

Later that day, Voruz came across to my apartment and we exchanged some more notes on Air-India and I also showed him some salvaged mail and books on the topic from my collection. I have also been in correspondence with another collector who is currently in the U.S. and studies a very interesting aspect of salvaged mail from this same flight. I hope to post on my blog about him as well soon.

Voruz has been kind enough to permit me to share a copy of the presentation he used that day, and also a well illustrated 4 page article he has written on the subject. Both can be downloaded by clicking on the respective links.

Here are images of two books in French written by Francoise Rey on the subject as well. She also summarized information from some important chapters of the book in English which can be read by clicking on this link.