Mangalore Air India Express crash victims' bodies were misidentified

Thiruvananthapuram: The bodies of several of those who died when the Air India Express flight from Dubai crashed at the Mangalore airport on May 22 may have been misidentified by relatives, according to a paper published in the journal Current Science.
The finding by scientists at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in Hyderabad substantiate reports that have appeared in the media about such misidentification.
The air disaster had claimed 158 lives, including the passengers and crew. The remains of 136 persons were handed over after close relatives identified them. But the remaining 22 victims could either not be identified or had rival claimants.
The Centre, which had rushed two experts down to Mangalore on its own initiative and who used technique of genetic analysis to quickly put names to these as yet unidentified individuals.
The Hyderabad laboratory needed to produce DNA profiles from the body samples of 22 victims and match them with those from the blood samples of 32 relatives.
Identities of 10 persons could be established within three days of the samples reaching Hyderabad, say the Centre's scientists in their Current Science paper.
Further genetic testing, which took more time, conclusively showed that the remaining 12 bodies were not related to any of the claimants.
07/08/10 N Gopal Raj/The Hindu

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