Tragedy within a tragedy for some families of British victims of the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner that crashed on June 12th among houses just seconds after takeoff from the Indian airport of Ahmedabad bound for London.
Some people, according to what the London tabloid Daily Mail claims today, were forced to postpone their funerals after receiving the wrong remains of their relatives.
The newspaper cites at least a couple of experiences from family members who report finding themselves at the center of "a horrendous mess."
In one case, the coffin received with references to a certain name turned out to contain the remains of another passenger, as revealed by the authorities themselves at the last minute, before the funeral ceremony. A second coffin, however, apparently contained the mangled remains of two different people.
The British government, which oversaw the repatriation of the bodies, defended itself by stating that the identification of the victims' bodies—a highly complex task given the circumstances of the crash, which killed 241 of the 242 people on board the Boeing, plus other victims on the ground, for a total of at least 260—is the responsibility of the Indian authorities.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the causes of the disaster is continuing in India after an initial report revealed a dramatic exchange between the two pilots recorded in the black box, apparently supporting the theory that one of the two switches regulating the flow of fuel to the engines was deactivated during takeoff—either accidentally or intentionally.
(Unioneonline/vl)
