Air India victim's family fear he's been mistakenly cremated as somebody else
The family of a man who was killed in the Air India crash are seeking answers after it was discovered that they were given the wrong remains.
Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, 39, and his husband Jamie, 45, were among the 242 people on board the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner when it crashed into a medical college shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport on 12 June, killing all but one person on the plane.
Mr Greenlaw-Meek's mother Amanda Donaghey, returned to the UK with her son's coffin but DNA tests carried out in the UK showed his remains were not inside.
His sister Arwen Greenlaw has now told BBC's Newsnight that she fears her brother's remains have been mistakenly cremated as someone else – and may never be returned to the family.
She said: 'The worst case scenario is that he has been cremated as somebody else – then we need to know that in order to move on.
'Somebody mislabelled remains – that has added trauma.'
Donaghey flew to India after the crash in order to find her son's remains, providing a DNA sample at Ahmedabad's Civil Hospital to assist the identification process.
But Greenlaw told Newsnight that it was 'a chaotic scene' and it was only once back in the UK that the family discovered the remains had been mislabelled when the casket was found to have 'the remains of two different people'.
She told Newsnight: 'It has been the equivalent of losing him twice.
'Mum had seen the situation there, smelt the smells, seen the sights, seen the crash site. I think for her that made it more real to be able to see that.'
Greenlaw said the situation was made worse because her brother's remains had been found in the clear-up.
She added: 'We are not naive. We understand it must have been a horrendous situation and my heart goes out to those who did the clear up – but we know Finn's remains were found.
'At that point you would expect the remains to come home. If he had not been matched we could get our heads around that.'
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