As investigators sifted through the wreckage of the worst air crash in India in over a decade to recover the Digital Flight Data Recorder (Black Box) and the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), grieving relatives lined up outside Wenlock Hospital in Mangalore to claim the bodies of the victims.
Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav said while 128 bodies have been identified and handed over the families, 12 were yet to be identified. Post-mortem was being carried out on 18 bodies. Officials began collecting DNA samples of the bodies that are yet to be identified. Two families from Kerala claimed the same body and authorities said it will handed over only after a DNA test. The bodies of four crew members were among those yet to be identified. The DNA samples of all the unidentified remains have been sent to Hyderabad for tests.
The CVR of the ill-fated Air India Flight IX-812 was recovered while the search for the DFDR (Black Box) was still on. Though ?affected by fire?, the CVR ?is expected to yield the desired information?, the government said. Officials of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) have also recovered the Digital Flight Data Acquisition Unit (DFDAU), a parallel unit of the DFDR which records flight parameter but for shorter durations. Analysis of the CVR and DFDAU will take about a fortnight.
Meanwhile, a team of top US transportation experts along with officials from Boeing is set to join Indian aviation authorities in probing the crash.
The team?which will assist DGCA in investigation into Saturday?s plane crash? is scheduled to reach Mangalore on Tuesday morning, a US official said.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is sending its investigators to India at the request of the Indian government, an official statement said.
?NTSB chairman, Deborah AP Hersman, has designated senior air safety investigator Joe Sedor as the US accredited representative,? the NTSB statement said. ?The US team will also include an NTSB flight operations specialist, an NTSB aircraft systems specialist and technical advisers from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing,? it said. ?The team is expected to arrive in Mangalore on Tuesday morning (local time),? the NTSB said. The investigation is being conducted by India?s DGCA, which will release all information on the progress of the probe, it said.
An Air India Express flight, which originated from Dubai, overshot the airport runway in Magalore and burst into flames on Saturday, killing 158 persons but eight others survived.
