Remains of Air India crash victims are handed over to relatives

AHMEDABAD, India (AP) — Authorities have started handing over remains of the victims of one of India’s worst aviation disasters, days after the Air India flight crashed and killed at least 270 people, officials said Sunday.

The London-bound Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel in a residential area of the northwestern city of Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff Thursday, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground. One passenger survived.

Hundreds of relatives of the crash victims provided DNA samples at the hospital. Most of the bodies were charred or mutilated, making them unrecognizable.

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.

Among the passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.

Qasim Rashid Ahmed, a British national of Indian origin whose charity provided food and accommodation to the victims’ relatives, said most of the British victims had relatives in Gujarat state and had given their DNA samples.

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.