"1953 (2 May) Airmail cover Calcutta India B.O.A.C. Comet Singapore-London : Pilot - Cap. M.V.Hadden; A de ...

"1953 (2 May) Airmail cover Calcutta India B.O.A.C. Comet Singapore-London : Pilot - Cap. M.V.Hadden; A de Havilland Comet jetliner registered G-ALYV and operated by British Overseas Airways Corporation crashed near Calcutta with the loss of 43 Lives, there were no survivors. The mail was Salvaged and forwarded after The Indian Post Office applied a Special cachet.

Flight 783 had originated in Singapore and was a service to London. After a scheduled stopover at Calcutta's Dum Dum Airport (now Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport), the aircraft departed on 2 May at 16:29 local time (10:59 GMT) on its next segment to Delhi. 

Six minutes after takeoff, while the jet was climbing to 2,300 mt, radio contact with air traffic control was lost. At around the same time, witnesses on the ground near the village of Jagalgori, around 40 km north-west of Calcutta, observed the aircraft coming down in flames. The wreckage of G-ALYV was later found strewn along a 8 km track. There were no survivors. "