Air India Tragedy: Officials Begin Returning Remains of Victims to Their Families

AHMEDABAD, India — Authorities have begun returning the remains of victims from one of India’s most severe aviation accidents, following DNA identification. This comes days after an Air India flight crashed, resulting in a death toll of at least 270 in Gujarat state, as reported by officials on Sunday.

The Boeing 787 en route to London collided with a medical college hostel in a residential area of Ahmedabad, a city in the northwest, shortly after takeoff on Thursday, claiming the lives of 241 individuals on board and at least 29 on the ground. There was one survivor.

Numerous relatives of the crash victims submitted DNA samples at the hospital. The majority of the bodies were burned or disfigured, rendering them unidentifiable.

Rajneesh Patel, an official at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, said authorities have so far identified 32 victims through DNA mapping and their families were informed. He said the remains of 14 victims were handed over to relatives.

The victims’ families waited outside the hospital mortuary as authorities worked to complete formalities and transfer the bodies in coffins into ambulances. Most of them have expressed frustration at a slow pace of the identification process. Authorities say it normally takes up to 72 hours to complete DNA matching and they are expediting the process.

Alongside the formal investigation, the Indian government has set up a high-level committee to examine the causes leading to the crash. The committee will focus on formulating procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement Saturday.

Authorities have also begun inspecting Air India’s entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, Minister of Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday in New Delhi at his first news briefing since Thursday’s crash.

Eight of the 34 Dreamliners in India have already undergone inspection, Kinjarapu said, adding that the remaining aircraft will be examined with “immediate urgency.”

Investigators on Friday recovered the plane’s digital flight data recorder, or the black box, from a rooftop near the crash site.

The device is expected to reveal information about the engine and control settings, while the voice recorder will provide cockpit conversations, said Paul Fromme, a mechanical engineer with the U.K.-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

The plane that crashed was 12 years old. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft. There are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation, according to experts.

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Hussain reported from Srinagar, India.