Kashmir Princess
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2014) |
Santa Cruz Airport, Bombay, India | |
Stopover | Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong |
---|---|
Destination | Kemayoran Airport, Jakarta, Indonesia |
Passengers | 11 |
Crew | 8 |
Fatalities | 16 |
Injuries | 3 |
Survivors | 3 |
The Kashmir Princess, or Air India Flight 300,
Explosion
Flight 300 departed Hong Kong at 04:25
The captain tried to land the plane on the sea, but the
Crash
The starboard wing struck water first, tearing the plane into three parts. The aircraft maintenance engineer (ground engineer), navigator and first officer escaped and were later found by the
Investigators believed that the explosion had been caused by a
Zhou Enlai
The target of the assassination attempt, Zhou Enlai, had planned to fly from Beijing to Hong Kong and then on to Jakarta on Kashmir Princess. An emergency
Some historians have argued that Zhou may have known about the assassination plot beforehand and that the premier did not undergo an appendectomy at the time.
Investigation
The day after the crash, China's
The Hong Kong authorities offered
The Hong Kong police concluded that the
Steve Tsang collected evidence from British, Taiwanese, American and Hong Kong archives that points directly to KMT agents operating in Hong Kong as the perpetrators of the aircraft bombing. According to him, the
A Chinese Foreign Ministry document declassified in 2004 also indicates that the KMT secret service was responsible for the bombing.[10]
China had from the outset accused the United States of involvement in the bombing, but while the CIA had considered a plan to assassinate Zhou Enlai at this time,[11] the Church Committee – a US Senate select committee that investigated the US intelligence community - reported that these plans were disapproved of and "strongly censured" by Washington.[12] In a 1971 face-to-face meeting in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Zhou directly asked Henry Kissinger about US involvement in the bombing. Kissinger responded, "As I told the Prime Minister the last time, he vastly overestimates the competence of the CIA."[13] However, in 1967, an American defector in Moscow, John Discoe Smith, had claimed that he had delivered a suitcase containing an explosive mechanism to a Chinese nationalist in Hong Kong.[14][15][16][17][18]
Commemorations
Captain D.K. Jatar and stewardess Gloria Eva Berry, were posthumously awarded the
In 2005, the Xinhua News Agency hosted a symposium to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the crash; three Xinhua journalists had been among the victims.[20]
See also
References
- from the original on 8 September 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ a b "Accident description". Aviation Safety. Archived from the original on 25 August 2009. Retrieved 18 June 2009.
- ^ a b c d "China spills Zhou Enlai secret". China Daily. 21 July 2004. Archived from the original on 9 March 2009. Retrieved 18 June 2009.
- ^ "Déjà vu from 30,000 ft". The Times of India. 4 January 2015. Archived from the original on 7 June 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
- ^ from the original on 8 September 2021. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ Mendis, Sean (26 July 2004). "Air India : The story of the aircraft". Airwhiners.net. Archived from the original on 24 July 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2013.
- ISBN 978-9811040085.
- ^ Steve Tsang, The Cold War's Odd Couple: The Unintended Partnership Between the Republic of China and the UK (New York: IB Tauris, 2006), 181.
- ^ "Police Seek Chinese in Crash Case" from Daytona Beach Morning Journal, 3 September 1955
- ^ "外交部揭密"克什米尔公主号"周总理座机被炸案(图)". 新华网. 京华时报. 20 July 2004. Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
- ^ Minnick, Wendell L. "Target: Zhou Enlai", Far Eastern Economic Review, 1995-07-13, pp. 54–55.
- ^ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 517.
- ^ Memorandum of conversation (Henry Kissinger, Zhou Enlai, and staff), Foreign, vol. Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E-13, Documents on China, 1969–1972, United States Department of State, 21 October 1971
- ^ Smith, John Discoe (1967). I was a CIA Agent in India. Communist Party [of India. Archived from the original on 12 April 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
- ISBN 978-0394479606.
- ^ "Indonesia, 1957–1958: War and pornography – William Blum". williamblum.org. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
- from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
- from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
- ^ "The death of an unknown Indian pilot, and the lost history of a CIA plot to kill a Chinese premier". The Indian Express. 5 December 2022. Archived from the original on 14 December 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
- ^ "China marks journalists killed in premier murder plot 50 years ago". Wayback Machine. Xinhua Net. 11 April 2004. Archived from the original on 19 April 2005. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
Further reading
- Li, Hong. "The Truth Behind the “Kashmir Princess” Incident". In Selected Essays on the History of Contemporary China, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2015),
- "Air India: The Story of the Aircraft", Air Whiners, 2004-07-26
- "China marks journalists killed in premier murder plot 50 years ago", Xinhua News Agency, 2005-04-11
- "China spills Zhou Enlai secret", China Daily, 2004-07-21
- Minnick, Wendell L. "Target: Zhou Enlai", Far Eastern Economic Review, 1995-07-13, pp. 54–55. (Archive)
External links
- Criminal Occurrence description at the Aviation Safety Network
- Final Report