The ''Kashmir Princess'', or Air India Flight 300, was a chartered

Lockheed L-749A Constellation The Lockheed L-749 Constellation is the first Lockheed Constellation to regularly cross the Atlantic Ocean non-stop. Although similar in appearance to the L-649 before it, the L-749 had a larger fuel capacity, strengthened landing gear, and even ...

flight owned by

Air India Air India is the flag carrier airline of India, headquartered at New Delhi. It is owned by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Tata Sons, after Air India Limited's former owner, the Government of India, completed the sa ...

. On 11 April 1955, it was damaged in midair by a bomb explosion and crashed into the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

while en route from

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

, India, and Hong Kong to

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

, Indonesia. Sixteen of those on board were killed, while three survived. The explosion was an assassination attempt targeting Chinese Premier

Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 J ...

, who missed the flight due to a medical emergency and was not on board. The Chinese government concluded that the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

(KMT) were responsible for the bombing.

Explosion

Flight 300 departed Hong Kong at 04:25

GMT Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...

carrying Chinese and Eastern European delegates, mainly journalists, to the Afro-Asian Bandung Conference in Jakarta. At approximately 09:25 GMT the crew heard an explosion; smoke quickly entered the cabin from a fire on the right wing directly behind the No. 3 (or right inboard) engine. Upon hearing the explosion and seeing the fire-warning light for the baggage compartment come on, the captain shut off the No. 3 engine and feathered its propeller, fearing the engine would catch fire. This left three engines running. The crew sent out three distress signals giving their position over the

Natuna Islands ''(Sacred Ocean, Fortune Land) , image_map = , pushpin_map = Indonesia Riau Islands#Indonesia Sumatra#Indonesia#South China Sea , pushpin_map_caption = Location in Riau Islands##Location in Sumatra##Location in I ...

before the radio went dead. The captain tried to land the plane on the sea, but the depressurising cabin and the failing circuits made that impossible. Additionally, smoke was seeping into the cockpit. Left with no other option, the crew issued

life jacket A personal flotation device (PFD; also referred to as a life jacket, life preserver, life belt, Mae West, life vest, life saver, cork jacket, buoyancy aid or flotation suit) is a flotation device in the form of a vest or suite that is worn by a ...

s and opened the emergency doors to ensure a quick escape as the plane plunged into the sea below.

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 Indonesian Coast Guard. The remaining 16 passengers and crew members, however, drowned at sea. Investigators believed that the explosion had been caused by a

time bomb A time bomb (or a timebomb, time-bomb) is a bomb whose detonation is triggered by a timer. The use (or attempted use) of time bombs has been for various purposes including insurance fraud, terrorism, assassination, sabotage and warfare. They ar ...

placed aboard the aircraft by a

secret agent Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

who was attempting to assassinate

Chinese Premier The premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, commonly called the premier of China and sometimes also referred to as the prime minister, is the head of government of China and leader of the State Council. The premier is ...

, who had been scheduled to board the plane to attend the conference but had changed his travel plans at the last minute.

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

appendectomy An appendectomy, also termed appendicectomy, is a Surgery, surgical operation in which the vermiform appendix (a portion of the intestine) is removed. Appendectomy is normally performed as an urgent or emergency procedure to treat complicated acu ...

delayed his arrival in Hong Kong; he left China three days after the crash and flew to

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

to meet with

Indian Prime Minister The prime minister of India (IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the ...

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

and Burmese Prime Minister

U Nu Nu ( my, ဦးနု; ; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995), commonly known as U Nu also known by the honorific name Thakin Nu, was a leading Burmese statesman and nationalist politician. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the pr ...

before continuing on to Bandung to attend the conference. 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. Steve Tsang of

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

wrote in the September 1994 edition of ''

The China Quarterly ''The China Quarterly'' (CQ) is a British double-blind peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1960 on contemporary China and Taiwan. It is considered the most important research journal about China in the world and is published by the Cam ...

'', "Evidence now suggests that Zhou knew of the plot beforehand and secretly changed his travel plans, though he did not stop a decoy delegation of lesser cadres from taking his place."

Investigation

The day after the crash, China's

Foreign Ministry In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...

issued a statement that described the bombing as "a murder by the special service organizations of the United States and

Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...

", while

Hong Kong Governor The governor of Hong Kong was the representative of the British Crown in Hong Kong from 1843 to 1997. In this capacity, the governor was president of the Executive Council and commander-in-chief of the British Forces Overseas Hong Kong. ...

Sir

Alexander Grantham Sir Alexander William George Herder Grantham, GCMG (; 15 March 1899 – 4 October 1978) was a British colonial administrator who governed Hong Kong and Fiji. Early life, colonial administration career Grantham was born on 15 March 1899 ...

maintained that the plane was not tampered with in Hong Kong. However, on 26 May, an Indonesian board of inquiry later announced that a time bomb with an American-made MK-7 detonator was responsible for the crash and it was highly probable that the bomb was placed on the plane in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong authorities offered

HK$ The Hong Kong dollar (, sign: HK$; code: HKD) is the official currency of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It is subdivided into 100 cents or 1000 mils. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is the monetary authority of Hong Kong and ...

100,000 for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. They questioned 71 people connected with the servicing of the Air India flight. When police began to focus on Chow Tse-ming, a janitor for Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co., he stowed away to Taiwan on a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

-owned

Civil Air Transport Civil Air Transport (CAT) was a Nationalist Chinese airline, later owned by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that supported United States covert operations throughout East and Southeast Asia. During the Cold War, missions consisted in ...

aircraft. The Hong Kong police reported that a warrant charging a murder conspiracy was issued, but the man with the name Chow Tse-ming in the warrant had flown to Taiwan on 18 May 1955, and Chow Tse-ming had three aliases. The Hong Kong police concluded that the

had recruited Chow to plant the bomb to kill Zhou Enlai. Apparently, he had bragged to friends about his role in the bombing, and had also spent large amounts of money before he left Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Police tried to

extradite Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdic ...

Chow, but Taiwan refused and denied that Chow was a

KMT The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

agent. 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

had a special-operations group stationed in Hong Kong responsible for assassination and sabotage. Designated the Hong Kong Group under

Major-General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

Kong Hoi-ping, it operated a network of 90 agents. In March 1955, the group recruited Chow for the assassination because his job at the airport gave him easy access to the Air India plane, and offered him HK$600,000 and refuge in Taiwan, if necessary. A

Chinese Foreign Ministry The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China () is the first-ranked executive department of the State Council of the Chinese government, responsible for the foreign relations of the People's Republic of China. It is led ...

document declassified in 2004 also indicates that the

secret service was responsible for the bombing. 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, the

Church Committee The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence ...

- an investigative organ of the US state itself - reported that these plans were disapproved of and "strongly censured" by Washington. In a 1971 face-to-face meeting in the

Great Hall of the People The Great Hall of the People is a state building located at the western edge of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It is used for legislative and ceremonial activities by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the ruling Chinese Co ...

in Beijing, Zhou directly asked

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...

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."

Commemorations

Captain D.K. Jatar and stewardess Gloria Eva Berry, were posthumously awarded the

Ashoka Chakra Award The Ashoka Chakra (alternative spelling: Ashok Chakra) is India's highest peacetime military decoration awarded for valor, courageous action, or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield. It is the peacetime equivalent of the Param Vir Chakra ( ...

for "most conspicuous bravery, daring and self-sacrifice". The same award was later given to the survivors of the incident: First officer M.C Dixit, ground maintenance engineer Anant Karnik, and navigator J.C. Pathak. Together, they were the first civilians to be awarded the Ashoka Chakra Award for outstanding bravery, and Berry was the first woman to ever receive the award. In 2005, the

Xinhua News Agency Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...

hosted a

symposium In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...

to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the crash; three Xinhua journalists had been among the victims.

References

"Air India: The Story of the Aircraft"Air Whiners
2004-07-26

, 2005-04-11
"China spills Zhou Enlai secret"

China Daily ''China Daily'' () is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party. Overview ''China Daily'' has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in China. T ...

, 2004-07-21 * Minnick, Wendell L.
Target: Zhou Enlai
,

Far Eastern Economic Review The ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' (''FEER'') was an Asian business magazine published between 1946 and December 2009 in the English language. Based in Hong Kong, the news magazine published weekly until December 2004, when it converted to a m ...

, 1995-07-13, pages 54–55.
Archive

External links

*
Final Report
{{authority control Explosions in 1955 Zhou Enlai Aviation accidents and incidents in 1955 Mass murder in 1955 Massacres committed by Taiwan Airliner bombings Assassinations Cross-Strait relations Failed assassination attempts in Asia History of Hong Kong 1955 in China 1955 in Indonesia Terrorist incidents in Asia in 1955 Anti-communist terrorism Aviation accidents and incidents in Indonesia Accidents and incidents involving the Lockheed Constellation Air India accidents and incidents Terrorist incidents in Indonesia Hong Kong–Taiwan relations CIA activities in Asia Individual aircraft April 1955 events State-sponsored terrorism 1955 disasters in Indonesia