Mourners in India have covered white coffins with flowers as funerals were held for some of the at least 279 people killed in one of the world’s worst plane crashes in decades.
Health officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering them to grieving relatives in the western city of Ahmedabad, but the wait went on for most families.
“They said it would take 48 hours. But it’s been four days and we haven’t received any response,” said Rinal Christian, 23, whose elder brother was a passenger on the jetliner.
There was one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the London-bound Air India jet when it crashed on Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground as well.
Relatives of the crash victims have provided DNA samples. (AP: Rafiq Maqbool)
“My brother was the sole breadwinner of the family,” Mr Christian said.
“So what happens next?”
At a crematorium in the city, about 20 to 30 mourners chanted prayers in a funeral ceremony for Megha Mehta, a passenger who had been working in London.
As of Sunday evening (India time), 47 crash victims had been identified, according to Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad’s civil hospital.
“This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only,” Dr Patel said.
One victim’s relative who did not want to be named said they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive it.
Relatives carry the coffin containing the remains of Megha Mehta at a crematorium during her funeral in Ahmedabad. (AP: Rafiq Maqbool)
Witnesses reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered remains.
Workers went on clearing debris from the site on Sunday, while police inspected the area.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after take-off, smashing into buildings used by medical staff.
The majority of those injured on the ground have been discharged, Dr Patel said, with one or two remaining in critical care.
Second black box located
Indian authorities have yet to identify the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India’s Dreamliners.
The crash was the first fatal one involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. (AP)
Investigators announced they had recovered the plane’s digital flight data recorder, or the black box, from a rooftop near the crash site.
The device is expected to reveal information about the engine and control settings, while the voice recorder will provide cockpit conversations, said Paul Fromme, a mechanical engineer with the UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
India’s Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said he hoped decoding the first black box, the flight data recorder, would “give an in-depth insight” into the circumstances of the crash.
Alongside the formal investigation, the Indian government has set up a high-level committee to examine the causes leading to the crash.
The committee will focus on formulating procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement on Saturday.
Authorities have also begun inspecting Air India’s entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, Minister of Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said on Saturday in New Delhi at his first news briefing since Thursday’s crash.
Eight of the 34 Dreamliners in India have already undergone inspection, Mr Kinjarapu said, adding that the remaining aircraft will be examined with “immediate urgency”.
The plane that crashed was 12 years old. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft.
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There are currently about 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation, according to experts.
‘We need to know’
Imtiyaz Ali, who was still waiting for a DNA match to find his brother, said the airline should have supported families faster.
A woman prays during a vigil in London for those who lost their lives in the Air India plane crash. (Reuters: Isabel Infantes)
“I’m disappointed in them. It is their duty,” said Mr Ali, who was contacted by the airline on Saturday.
“Next step is to find out the reason for this accident. We need to know.”
One person escaped alive from the wreckage, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose brother was also on the flight.
Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members.
Among the passengers was a father of two young girls, Arjun Patoliya, who had travelled to India to scatter his wife’s ashes following her death weeks earlier.
“I really hope that those girls will be looked after by all of us,” said Anjana Patel, the mayor of London’s Harrow borough where some of the victims lived.
“We don’t have any words to describe how the families and friends must be feeling,” she added.
Dabu Patni mourns as she waits for the body of her younger brother Akash Patni, 14. (Reuters: Adnan Abidi)
While communities were in mourning, one woman recounted how she survived by arriving late at the airport.
“The airline staff had already closed the check-in,” said 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan.
“At that moment, I kept thinking that if only we had left a little earlier, we wouldn’t have missed our flight,” she told the Press Trust of India news agency.
AFP/AP
