DISTRAUGHT families of the Air India plane crash victims have reportedly been sent the wrong bodies after they were returned to the UK.
Reports indicate that the airline mishandled the process of returning the remains of some British victims from the ill-fated flight, mistakenly delivering remains to the wrong families.
One heartbroken family was even forced to cancel funeral plans due to the mix-up of bodies, the Mail Online reported.
In a further distressing error, caskets reportedly contained “commingled” human remains, with body parts from multiple victims sent together to the UK.
It is understood that the body parts had to be separated before the internment could go ahead last weekend.
These alarming revelations emerged when Dr. Fiona Wilcox, a coroner from Inner West London, attempted to confirm the identities of the repatriated British victims by comparing DNA samples from mourning relatives.
On Tuesday night, a high-level inquiry was launched in London and India.
Sir Keir Starmer is reportedly expected to raise concerns over the repatriation process with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his state visit to the UK later this week.
Only two instances of mistaken identity have been reported so far – but fears are mounting that more could still have been made.
All passengers and crew on board the doomed Air India Flight 171 died other than one after the jet smashed into a doctor’s hospital in Ahmedabad, India, en route to London Gatwick.
Dozens more died on the ground taking the tragic total to 260.
A total of 53 Brits were on board the aircraft, including lone survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh who was sat in seat 11A.
Although some victims were quickly cremated or buried in India, according to religious beliefs, aviation lawyer James Healy-Pratt said the remains of at least 12 had been repatriated.
He is currently representing Brit families by making sure the full facts behind the horror crash are known, and ensuring the compensation is awarded to victims’ families in court.
Healy-Pratt is now investigating the alleged body mix-up that reportedly occurred during the repatriation process.
He told the Daily Mail that some of the distraught families he has been working with had “got the wrong remains” sent to them.
The lawyer detailed how the family who received “commingled” remains were able to separate the body parts and hold a funeral service.
But he revealed that the other set of relatives, whom he dubbed Family X, had been “left in limbo”.
He said: “Family X have no-one to bury because it was the wrong person in their casket.
“And if isn’t their relative, the question is, who is it in that coffin?”
He continued: “Presumably it’s another passenger and their relatives have been given the wrong remains.”
The lawyer added that the coroner also had a problem with the “unidentified person” in her jurisdiction.
He is now working to establish the exact chain of events in the reportedly botched identification process.
This process will start with figuring out when the corpses were pulled from the wreckage, and end with when each one arrived in the UK.
Brit families previously slammed the chaotic ground operation following the horror smash on June 12.
One relative reportedly blasted the “lack of transparency and oversight in the identification and handling of remains”.
Calls for a British-run ID unit to be flown in were also made.
The gruelling recovery operation began soon after the plane crashed and was led by Ahmedabad’s police and fire departments and the state disaster response force.
Sniffer dogs and high-tech search equipment were pulled in to help – and even locals joined in, sifting through smouldering metal with their bare hands in some cases.
The remains of virtually all the victims were believed to have been found within three days.
This was despite the fact that the blistering 1,500 degrees heat had burnt most remains beyond recognition.
Hundreds of families received loved ones’ remains from the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad – in a plastic container rather than a coffin.
Relatives gave DNA samples to be used as identification – but in the most severe cases they had to be matched against dental records.
Families relied on officials to carry out the process accurately and label the containers correctly.
Altaf Taju, from Blackburn, whose London-based parents Adam, 72 and Hasina, 70, died along with their son-on-law Altafhusen Patel, 51, in the horror smash, said: “Nobody looked at the remains. We weren’t allowed to.
“They just said, ‘This is your mother or father’, and gave us a paper label with an ID number on it.
“We had to take their word for it. It’s horrific that this could have happened, but what could anyone do?”
Taju was told of the alleged mix-up by a police liaison officer – but said that his relatives were not involved in the mix-up as they were buried in India quickly.
Indian authorities claimed they had confirmed the identities of all 260 fatalities by June 28 – and the Brit remains flown back to the UK were transported by Air India.
The Sun reached out to Air India for comment.
