231 plane crash victims identified through DNA tests, 210 bodies returned to family
More than a week after the devastating Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, authorities have identified 231 victims through DNA testing. Of these, 210 bodies have been handed over to their families so far.'Till Friday evening, 231 DNA samples have been matched and relatives have been contacted. So far, the mortal remains of 210 victims have been handed over to families,' Rakesh Joshi, Medical Superintendent of Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.advertisementAmong those returned to their families are 199 passengers—155 Indians, 36 British nationals, 7 Portuguese nationals, and 1 Canadian. The remaining 11 were local residents who were killed when the aircraft slammed into buildings near the crash site.
At present, 21 identified bodies are still at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital. While DNA matches have been confirmed for all of them, the formalities are still pending. Ten families are expected to collect the remains by Saturday morning. Another three will be handed over after necessary air clearance. The remaining eight are linked to pending DNA confirmations of other victims.Eight of the deceased were earlier handed over without DNA testing as their identities were clearly established. Additionally, three local residents succumbed to injuries during treatment, bringing the total number of ground fatalities to 22.advertisementThe crash, which occurred on June 12, claimed over 270 lives making it one of the deadliest air disasters in India's recent history. Of the 242 passengers and crew members onboard the doomed flight, 241 died in the crash. The lone survivor was Vishwas Kumar, a 28-year-old tech consultant seated near the emergency exit on seat 11A.The London-bound Air India flight AI-171 had barely taken off from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport when it plunged into a medical college complex in the Meghaninagar area. The impact was so severe that many bodies were charred or mangled beyond recognition, prompting the need for extensive DNA testing.The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has recovered the black box of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which will be key to understanding what caused the aircraft to go down so soon after takeoff.Tune InMust Watch
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‘There was a wall of fire… seen nothing like this before': How Ahmedabad's firefighters dealt with plane crash aftermath
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We dispatched first responder teams from Shahpur, Nikol and Naroda fire stations and then informed the entire force through wireless, asking them to send everyone possible to the crash site,' said a fireman close to the nerve centre of the operations. But the very first job, however, was to actually locate the plane. Sources told The Indian Express, 'We received hundreds of phone calls from the public that day. The people, calling in panic, gave disparate information. While some said the fire was at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, others said it was in Meghaninagar. There was a lot of confusion but our teams found its way using the smoke, which followed the crash, as a beacon.' The first responders then called the control room and relayed the scale of the accident after which a full-scale deployment was ordered. The fog of disaster Around this time, some of the officers were at the Riverfront House, working on the recruitment process of firefighters, when a driver saw a large plume of smoke over the horizon. He ran inside the building and informed the officers. A mid-level officer, who was almost 8.5 km away from the crash site when the emergency call came, said, 'In the initial call, we were told that there had been a crash-landing of an aircraft and so, we coordinated to reach the airport circle. However, we saw that the smoke was not coming from the airport. We checked with the control room again and were told to head to Meghaninagar. We reached in 22 minutes despite dealing with severe traffic jams.' Apart from the traffic congestion, what made the task difficult for the firefighters was the crowd of curious onlookers, swelling by the minute. 'It was not just vehicles that were parked on both sides of this road… hundreds of people, too, had gathered to witness the tragedy. We had to disembark from the firefighting vehicles and while some of us rushed towards the site on foot, others had to move people out of the way so that the firefighting vehicles and water bowsers could enter the area,' said another officer. All the officers that The Indian Express spoke to requested anonymity. Wall of fire and smoke 'When we finally reached the crash site, there was nothing but a wall of fire and smoke, and an intense radiating heat … Even the wind was blowing against us and with it, the heat and the smoke,' said an officer. Another officer, among the first to reach the site, said, 'When we reached there, we couldn't see anything… there were just flames. We couldn't even make out the hostel buildings from the fire. We didn't immediately understand the situation but wore our overalls and rushed to the site.' Said an officer, 'On approaching the site, we saw the debris of the aircraft… My first thought was to rescue people who may still be alive inside the building. So, our team rushed in there. Just at the entrance, a piece of debris was on fire with a couple of LPG cylinders lying close to it. We first removed them to a safe place.' Describing the scene inside one of the buildings, the officer said, 'We saw personnel from the Army's Medical Corp also trying to look for survivors. The army men had reached before the firefighters as the military hospital is right behind the hostel. The aircraft's tail had actually collided with a chimney on its premises before hitting the mess building.' By the time the AFES reached the hostel campus, the Airport Firefighting Unit was already at work. The city's firefighters promptly took over. Said another officer, 'We first evacuated around 30 people from the first two hostel buildings next to which the majority of the aircraft had crashed. Initially, we didn't even notice the mess building… We were concerned with the four burning hostel buildings since the mess was not on fire. We began firefighting in the hostel residences.' Notably, the mess building is located at a short distance from the cluster of four residential hostel buildings – Atulyam. On the top floor of a hostel building, a team saw two bodies lying next to each other in the passageway. It looked like the two individuals had tripped while attempting to escape the building. 'The bodies were completely charred,' said a member of this team, adding, 'We sought help from the military personnel to bring the bodies down but, at that point, the building was still on fire and they were not dressed for the situation like we were. Meanwhile, a few firefighters arrived with bedsheets in which they wrapped the two bodies along with another one we found inside the building, and brought them down.' Describing the devastation wrought on the building, an officer said the right side of the aircraft had sheared through the corner pillars and beams 'like a knife' and aviation fuel had led to the entire premises 'burning furiously'. The next task was to deal with the mess building, where the tail of the aircraft was lodged. An officer said, 'It was only when we reached the roof of one of the hostel buildings that we noticed something on the top of the mess. We immediately dispatched a team there.' Finding the fuselage After clearing the first two buildings, a team approached the debris of the aircraft lying between them and spotted the left engine of the Dreamliner. The fuselage, said the officer, was unrecognisable. 'There, we found the bodies of three children huddled together.' Firefighting at the site continued for another 2-3 hours. So, when personnel began pulling the bodies out of the seats, most of the AFES officers were still involved in dousing the massive blaze and multiple blasts caused by the crash. 'We saw charred bodies, hands, legs, intestines everywhere. Some bodies were heaped on each other. Others were fused into each other to the extent we couldn't tell if it was one body or two… many bodies had missing parts lying far away,' said an officer. Another officer said, 'Most of the metal was so hot that we could hardly touch anything even after two hours… By 8.15 pm, the firefighters were drained, both emotionally and physically, to the extent that we could hardly bear to even speak to each other.' The Indian Express attempted to reach out to Chief Fire Officer Amit Dongre regarding the work done by the AFES but he remained unavailable for comment. In a government statement on June 16, Dongre was quoted as saying, 'The fire station teams of Naroda and Shahpur, which reached the scene first, gave a picture of the severity of the situation. In addition to Ahmedabad city, help was also sought from firefighters from Gandhinagar, Kheda, Anand, Vadodara, Gift City and the Army to control the emergency situation. More than 100 firefighting vehicles were deployed at the scene within a short period of time, due to which the rescue operation could be completed in just four hours.' The statement said that 7.50 lakh litres of water had been used to control and cool the fire. Modern resources like Gajraj (a kind of bowser) made the fire-fighting work easier, it added. One of the officers quoted above said around 650 trained personnel were involved in the firefighting operation. No firefighter suffered any injury or damage, he added. Story of two crashes Rajesh Bhatt, retired interim CFO of the AFES, who was a Station Officer at the time of the 1988 crash, told The Indian Express, 'At that time, the aircraft had crashed just short of the runway into the Kotarpur water works located to its north-east … There was nobody on the ground … At that time also, we initially did not realise where the plane had crashed.' He further said, 'In 1988, there was less fuel in the aircraft because it was landing, and not taking off like AI 171. So, the fire was also not as major as this one. Despite that, in my 40-year-long career, I have never been as scared as I was on that day. The scale of the disaster, the condition of the bodies, to pick them up and transport them, was the hardest thing we ever had to do in the line of duty. What our firefighters have done today is extremely commendable.'
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Air India flight crash: Body of missing filmmaker among 210 handed over to family members
Eight days after Air India flight AI 171 crashed, the authorities have identified 230 victims and handed 210 bodies to families, officials said Friday. The bodies that were returned included that of Mahesh Kalawadia, 34, a filmmaker who was among four people reported missing after the incident. Kalawadia's DNA was matched with a family member's and his body was handed over to his family Friday afternoon, sources at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital said. As earlier reported by The Indian Express, Kalawadia was neither in the flight nor in the BJ Medical College hostel where it crashed. His last location before his phone switched off was nearly 700 metres from the hostel. While the filmmaker's family hoped he was not among those killed, police had convinced them to give their DNA samples in case his body was found. Dr Rakesh Joshi, Medical Superintendent of Civil Hospital, in a video statement on June 20 evening said, 'While DNA analysis of 230 victims has been completed, 210 bodies have been handed over to the families. While the families of 8 deceased are awaiting the bodies… 10 families are yet to decide on a time to receive the remains and 3 families are awaiting air clearance for air transport of the bodies.'
