Family feels sad as officials begin handing over the remains of victims in an Air India crash
More than 72 hours of the deadliest aviation tragedy in India’s recent memory, Rohit Patel (who mourned the loss of two children) shivered in the room of Indian health and investigative officers in Ahmedabad and asked for answers.
“When will the corpse be given?” he asked, crashing in front of the TV cameras and senior officials. His son Harshit and daughter Pooja Patel were flying 242 passengers and crew on the Air India Express, which crashed a few minutes after taking off Thursday.
Dr. Rajnish Patel, the city’s additional medical director, tried to soothe the grieving father. “You’ll get a call,” he said. “Please go to the hospital after that.”
But the father pressed: “How long can this process continue?”
Dr. Patel explains the incredibly slowness of the DNA recognition process due to physical conditions. “Often, it takes three to four days,” he said. “This situation is very critical. Please be patient. The body will be handed over correctly.”
As of Sunday night, 22 bodies have been identified and returned to the family. DNA samples were matched in 47 cases, although officials clarified that this does not mean 47 people – some belong to the same victim, reconstructed hard before they can rest in peace. “We must respect the dead,” a senior official said.
The process is painful: fragments of the body must be accurately identified, matched with DNA samples, and carefully stitched together for placement in a coffin, officials added.
Rohit Patel (second from right) slammed the officials’ bodies at Namita Singh/the Independent on Sunday.
Outside the morgue of the civil hospital, sadness hangs in the air.
Among the gathered families is 21-year-old Khushboo Rajpurohit, a newlywed couple who joins her husband in London. Her uncle, Rajpurohit, said the family had obtained her death that morning through a government node official.
Mr. Rajpurohit told independent. Her father went to the airport to meet her. “He waited until she boarded the plane and didn’t even cross Mesana when we learned of the crash.”
They gathered outside the morgue around 10 a.m. and raised each other to wait for the formalities to come to a conclusion. A few hours later, Khushboo’s coffin was carefully loaded into an ambulance and was taken to her hometown of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, and accompanied by police escorts and an Air India vehicle.
“It will be handed over to the family with full honor,” said Mr. Rajpurohit.
21-year-old Khushboo Rajpurohit with her father before boarding Air India on June 12 (provided/independent)
A few minutes after Thursday’s departure, London’s Boeing 787 raided a medical school dormitory in a residential area in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad, 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 to help identify those who died, but it was a slow process, with each victim taking 48 to 72 hours. Among those confirmed DNA competitions is former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.
Kishore Rajpurohit waits to receive deadly remains outside the Mortuary complex (Namita Singh/Independent)
Outside the hospital, a series of ambulances prepare to receive the body. Mahindra Singh, an ambulance driver in Kheda, Gujarat, said he has been stationed there since Saturday morning. “We were told to carry two bodies. When the call came, we left. We were not allowed to contact our families, only the node officials notified them.”
Bharat Godia arrives from Kutch with a fleet of five ambulances. “The regional government ordered us to collect the bodies. Government officials will accompany them,” he said.
In the Panchal house in Baroda, it was a call that no one wanted to answer – certainly not at 12:30 am. Shashi Panchal’s phone rang on Saturday night, bringing the final confirmation he was afraid: the body of his brother Narendra Panchal and sister son Usha Panchal was confirmed by DNA tests.
The couple was one of the victims of an air crash in India and destroyed families in India and beyond. It was their first time visiting their only child in London, and they were studying for a law degree in the UK.
“My nephew should be back in September,” Panchal said in a speech outside the civil hospital on Sunday. “But my brother suggested they visit him and all three of them can return together.”
Panchal, who traveled overnight from Baroda, admitted that the confirmation was a shocking shock. “I actually didn’t even know they were flying,” he said. “When I heard what happened… I couldn’t even start describing my thoughts. It was a very difficult time.”
He was told he would arrive at the hospital by noon, but the delay in procedures meant that he had not seen his body yet independent Talk to him. Even so, he thanked him for how to manage the process. “These services are also good, and so are the arrangements,” he said.
Narendra and Usha Panchal traveled to England for the first time to meet their son. Their bodies have been identified among the victims of the crash (provided)
But there is no sense of order that can fill the space left by the dead. Asked if he was seeking an investigation into the tragedy, Mr. Panchar said: “I just want to make sure that something like this never happens again. The government and all authorities have to make sure that.”
He added: “Because no matter how good the service is, they will not bring my brothers and sisters back.”
In addition to the formal investigation, the Indian government has also established a high-level committee to examine the causes of the crash. The Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the committee will focus on developing procedures to prevent and deal with aircraft emergencies.
Authorities also began inspecting all of Air India’s Boeing’s 787 fantasy aircraft, Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said in Delhi on Saturday that he said at his first press conference since the crash on Thursday.
Jinjarapu said eight of India’s 34 fantasy paralleles had already been inspected, adding that the remaining aircraft would be inspected in “immediate urgency”.
Investigators on Friday retrieved the aircraft’s digital flight data recorder or black box from a roof near the crash site.
Paul Fromme, a mechanical engineer based in the UK-based Mechanical Engineers Agency, said the device is expected to reveal information about the engine and control settings, while the voice recorder will provide cockpit conversation.
The crashed plane is 12 years old. Boeing aircraft plagues safety issues for other types of aircraft. According to experts, there are currently about 1,200 people in the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide, the first fatal crash in 16 years.
