Mum of Air India crash victim ‘appalled' after body mix up
Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek and his partner Jamie were among those on flight AI171, which plummeted to the ground shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad, India, in June.
The couple had travelled to India for a 10-day wellness retreat.
Mr Greenlaw-Meek's mother, Amanda Donaghey, flew to India shortly after she was told the devastating news about her son.
'Visiting the site and seeing it was something I felt like I had to do. I wanted to understand what had happened,' she told The Sunday Times.
'I remember all these burnt trees. The trees were scorched black. But there were still birds and squirrels in those trees, which I found quite profound.
'It was like a bomb site. You would think it was from a war scene, but there were still these small birds twittering.'
Ms Donaghey, desperate to find her missing son's remains, gave a blood sample to help identify him through DNA.
When local officials found his body, the 66-year-old mother was told that his body would be sent back to the UK in a casket.
However, while in the throes of planning a funeral, she received a devastating call from police: A British coroner had determined from a more thorough DNA test that the remains inside the casket did not belong to her son.
'It was heartbreaking,' Ms Donaghey said.
'We don't know what poor person is in that casket. This is an appalling thing to have happened.'
The grieving mother has called on the UK Government to do all it can to uncover what happened to her son's remains and 'bring Fiongal home.'
Ms Donaghey is one of many heartbroken parents who have had to rearrange funeral plans due to the mix-up of bodies.
Another family was given 'co-mingled' remnants of more than one person in their casket, so a process of separating the remains had to be undertaken before the funeral went ahead, according to the Daily Mail.
In an eerie video posted just before boarding the doomed flight, the wellness influencer appeared in what would be his final video on social media.
Mr Greenlaw-Meek and his partner Jamie can be seen preparing for their long-haul journey back to London, reflecting on their time in India. Jamie Meek and partner Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek were among those on flight AI171, which plummeted to the ground shortly after taking off. Credit: Unknown / Instagram
'We are at the airport just boarding,' Mr Greenlaw-Meek said, before bidding farewell to India ahead of what his partner suggested would be a '10-hour flight back to England.'
At the end of the heartbreaking video, Mr Greenlaw-Meek said, 'Going back happily, happily, happily calm.'
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It is believed that only Indian authorities performed DNA tests on victims, with no checks from international organisations.
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