UK Families Of Air India Crash Victims Received Wrong Bodies
In a harrowing development following the tragic Air India crash in Ahmedabad last month, at least two bereaved families in the United Kingdom received the wrong bodies of their loved ones. The devastating mix-up, which has compounded the families’ grief, was only discovered when a London coroner attempted to verify the identities of the victims through DNA matching.
The catastrophic error has led to one family abandoning their funeral plans after being informed the coffin contained the remains of an unknown person, not their relative. Another family received the remains of their loved one mixed with those of another passenger in the same coffin, according to James Healy-Pratt, the aviation lawyer from Keystone Law representing many of the British families.
The mix-up has prompted an urgent call for an inquiry into the identification process, which was handled by the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital in India. Sources in India maintain that the bodies were sent in sealed coffins after DNA sampling and that Air India’s role was limited to facilitating the transfer and supporting the families.
“One family had to get the remains of the two passengers separated before carrying out the funeral,” the lawyer told India Today TV. “One family was left with no one to bury after realising that they had received the wrong remains.”
The error came to light when Inner West London coroner Dr. Fiona Wilcox sought to formally verify the identities of the repatriated Britons by matching their DNA with samples provided by the families.
The Gatwick-bound Air India flight AI171 crashed near Ahmedabad on June 12, killing 241 of the 242 people on board. Among the victims were 53 British nationals. While many funerals were conducted in India, the remains of at least 12 victims were flown to the UK. As most bodies were charred beyond recognition, the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital conducted DNA tests before handing over sealed coffins to the next of kin.
Altaf Taju, from Blackburn, who lost three family members in the crash, recounted the agonizing process. “Nobody looked at the remains. We weren’t allowed to… They just said, ‘This is your mother or father’, and gave us a paper label with an ID number on it. We had to take their word for it. It’s horrific that this could have happened,” he told The Daily Mail.
Lawyer James Healy-Pratt stated that the families are “clearly distraught” and deserve an explanation. He is now working to establish the chain of events in the recovery and identification process to uncover the full truth for the grieving families.
