Families hold funerals for Air India crash victims
AHMEDABAD, India: Grieving families were due to hold funerals in India on Sunday for their relatives who were among at least 279 killed in one of the world's worst plane crashes in decades.Health officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering them in white coffins in the western city of Ahmedabad.'My heart is very heavy, how do we give the bodies to the families?' said Tushar Leuva, an NGO worker who has been helping with the recovery efforts.There was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the Air India jet when it crashed Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground.'How will they react when they open the gate? But we'll have to do it,' Leuva said at the mortuary on Saturday.One victim's relative who did not want to be named said they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive it.Witnesses reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered remains.The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical staff.Mourning relatives have been providing DNA samples to be matched with passengers, with 31 identified as of Sunday morning.'This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only,' Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad's civil hospital, said late Saturday.The majority of those injured on the ground have been discharged, he added, with one or two remaining in critical care.Indian authorities are yet to detail the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India's Dreamliners.Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the recovered black box, or flight data recorder, would 'give an in-depth insight' into what went wrong.Just one person miraculously escaped the wreckage, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose brother was also on the flight.Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members.Among the passengers was a father of two young girls, Arjun Patoliya, who had traveled to India to scatter his wife's ashes following her death weeks earlier.'I really hope that those girls will be looked after by all of us,' said Anjana Patel, the mayor of London's Harrow borough where some of the victims lived.'We don't have any words to describe how the families and friends must be feeling,' she added.While communities were in mourning, one woman recounted how she survived only by arriving late at the airport.'The airline staff had already closed the check-in,' said 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan.'At that moment, I kept thinking that if only we had left a little earlier, we wouldn't have missed our flight,' she told the Press Trust of India news agency.
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Al Arabiya
3 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Remains of Air India crash victims are handed over to relatives
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 UK-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.
Asharq Al-Awsat
10 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Families Hold Funerals for Air India Crash Victims
Grieving families were due to hold funerals in India on Sunday for their relatives who were among at least 279 killed in one of the world's worst plane crashes in decades. Health officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering them in white coffins in the western city of Ahmedabad. "My heart is very heavy, how do we give the bodies to the families?" said Tushar Leuva, an NGO worker who has been helping with the recovery efforts. There was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the Air India jet when it crashed Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground. "How will they react when they open the gate? But we'll have to do it," Leuva told AFP at the mortuary on Saturday. One victim's relative who did not want to be named told AFP they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive it. Witnesses reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered remains. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical staff. Mourning relatives have been providing DNA samples to be matched with passengers, with 31 identified as of Sunday morning. "This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only," Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad's civil hospital, said late Saturday. The majority of those injured on the ground have been discharged, he added, with one or two remaining in critical care. - Girls orphaned by crash - Indian authorities are yet to detail the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India's Dreamliners. Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the recovered black box, or flight data recorder, would "give an in-depth insight" into what went wrong. Just one person miraculously escaped the wreckage, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose brother was also on the flight. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members. Among the passengers was a father of two young girls, Arjun Patoliya, who had travelled to India to scatter his wife's ashes following her death weeks earlier. "I really hope that those girls will be looked after by all of us," said Anjana Patel, the mayor of London's Harrow borough where some of the victims lived. "We don't have any words to describe how the families and friends must be feeling," she added. While communities were in mourning, one woman recounted how she survived only by arriving late at the airport. "The airline staff had already closed the check-in," said 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan. "At that moment, I kept thinking that if only we had left a little earlier, we wouldn't have missed our flight," she told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Arab News
12 hours ago
- Arab News
Families hold funerals for Air India crash victims
AHMEDABAD, India: Grieving families were due to hold funerals in India on Sunday for their relatives who were among at least 279 killed in one of the world's worst plane crashes in officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering them in white coffins in the western city of Ahmedabad.'My heart is very heavy, how do we give the bodies to the families?' said Tushar Leuva, an NGO worker who has been helping with the recovery was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the Air India jet when it crashed Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground.'How will they react when they open the gate? But we'll have to do it,' Leuva said at the mortuary on victim's relative who did not want to be named said they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical relatives have been providing DNA samples to be matched with passengers, with 31 identified as of Sunday morning.'This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only,' Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad's civil hospital, said late majority of those injured on the ground have been discharged, he added, with one or two remaining in critical authorities are yet to detail the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India's Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the recovered black box, or flight data recorder, would 'give an in-depth insight' into what went one person miraculously escaped the wreckage, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose brother was also on the India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew the passengers was a father of two young girls, Arjun Patoliya, who had traveled to India to scatter his wife's ashes following her death weeks earlier.'I really hope that those girls will be looked after by all of us,' said Anjana Patel, the mayor of London's Harrow borough where some of the victims lived.'We don't have any words to describe how the families and friends must be feeling,' she communities were in mourning, one woman recounted how she survived only by arriving late at the airport.'The airline staff had already closed the check-in,' said 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan.'At that moment, I kept thinking that if only we had left a little earlier, we wouldn't have missed our flight,' she told the Press Trust of India news agency.
