Last victim identified in Air India Flight 171 crash; death toll reaches 260

Hindustan Times

9 hours ago

Ahmedabad: The last body of a passenger who was killed in the June 12 Air India plane crash, with 242 people on board, was identified on Friday night, taking the death toll from the plane crash to 260. The body of the deceased, a resident from Kutch, was handed over to his relatives late on Saturday night. (Reuters)
All the remains found from the Air India Flight 171 crash site in Ahmedabad have been identified using DNA matching or facial recognition, barring one case, Gujarat health department officials had said on Tuesday.
'The last body, of a passenger, was identified on Saturday night using DNA matching. The overall death toll from the plane crash is 260, including 19 non-passengers,' superintendent of Ahmedabad Civil Hospital Rakesh Joshi said, adding no new remains have been recovered from the site in the last few days.
The body of the deceased, a resident from Kutch, was handed over to his relatives late on Saturday night, an official said.
So far, 253 victims were identified through DNA testing, while six were identified through facial recognition.
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The London-bound Air India Dreamliner aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff on June 12 from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, killing 241 of the 242 people onboard. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British national of Indian origin, emerged as the lone survivor. The impact devastated the residential block of a nearby medical college, claiming several lives on the ground.
A total of 318 body parts were recovered from the crash site at Meghaninagar, a senior police official said.
Additional chief secretary of the health and family welfare department Dhananjay Dwivedi told HT that as many as 250 relatives of the deceased, including non-passengers, gave DNA samples for identification. He said that while the DNA samples of the relatives of the victims were collected at Ahmedabad Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), the DNA matching was conducted at FSL Gandhinagar and the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU).
A DNA matching process such as this typically takes months. But in the case of the AI 171 crash, identification of viable samples was completed in about two weeks.
DNA sampling for forensic identification follows two primary approaches. The first method involves collecting samples from fresh blood, while the second method requires collecting samples from deceased individuals' remains, demanding greater precision and careful handling to prevent contamination.
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'The DNA extraction process begins with careful sample preparation. Bone samples are meticulously ground into a fine powder, while tooth samples are first broken into small fragments before being similarly powdered. This is crucial for maximising DNA yield from these challenging biological materials,' said head of the centre of excellence in DNA Forensics at the NFSU Bhargav Patel said.
The powdered samples then undergo precise heat treatment using specialised equipment. This process breaks down cellular structures to release the DNA while keeping the genetic material intact. After extraction, the DNA goes through strict quality checks. The scientists then create multiple copies of the genetic material through amplification. The double-stranded DNA is then carefully separated into individual strands and processed through advanced sequencing equipment to create a complete DNA profile.
Patel said that his team of 32 scientists and PhD scholars handled more than 150 DNA samples from deceased individuals of the plane crash for matching purposes, successfully identifying over 125 bodies.