The Mangalore Aircrash of 22 May 2010: Practical Problems Related to Identification of the Dead in a Populous Developing Country

Introduction

It was a sad and emotional moment for the citizens of Mangalore, India when the “Dubai to Mangalore” Air India Express Boeing 737-800 flight IX-812 crashed at the Mangalore International Airport on 22 May 2010, killing 158 people on board. Unfortunately, as there were only a handful of survivors, the main focus became the identification of the dead victims. As most of the bodies were charred beyond easy recognition, it proved to be a daunting task. Visual identification based on morphological features as well as personal belongings tends to be the major source of identification used by the relatives or legal heirs in such circumstances. In the Mangalore incident, DNA-based identification was later used to identify the unclaimed bodies. The practical problems faced by the legal authorities in identifying the charred victims in a populous and developing country like India are discussed.

Initial response and limitations

There were many practical problems, specific to the terrain and local facilities, faced by the legal authorities in identifying the victims. Because of the terrain, a table-top airport with a valley at the end of the runway, and the fact that it rained on the morning of 22 May, a makeshift mortuary at the site could not be considered. Instead most of the bodies were shifted to the Government Wenlock District Hospital mortuary situated around 15 km away from the site of the air disaster. A very few bodies were taken to the mortuaries of four different private medical colleges in Mangalore for postmortem external examination. There were restricted facilities in the mortuary and the surrounding Government Wenlock District Hospital. These limitations are common in a developing country like India, where the specialty of Forensic Medicine is not considered important. There were no antemortem dental or medical records provided by the legal heirs at the time of the identification parade. Moreover, the police discovered that a few of the passengers had travelled using fake documents which added to the chance of non-identification or misidentification of the remains. With due respect to the sentiments and emotions of the legal heirs, the area in and around the mortuary was chaotic. In addition to huge numbers of the general public, media personnel also added to the unwanted crowd. Indeed, vehicles belonging to the media personnel were parked within the hospital campus, occupying a lot of space that could otherwise have been better used. Stricter implementation of access rules for media personnel, however, might suggest an attempt to hide the deficiencies of the administrators. This might bring about further chaos. This was the initial atmosphere in which the members of the disaster victim identification (DVI) team started working.

Behaviour of the volunteers and family members

Appallingly, many precious personal belongings found on the dead victims like jewellery were removed by the so-called volunteers - who had ironically come to help themselves financially. Moreover, there were hundreds of volunteers who were not systematic in what they were doing as none of them were trained in disaster management and there were hundreds of anxious onlookers who had no role to play in identifying the bodies. This atmosphere of chaos may have led to some of the bodies being misidentified. In the wake of mass disasters, the police cannot openly use force to control the crowd. This would upset the people who had lost their kith and kin. However, initial steps to better coordinate or at least to limit the crowd would have been a significant help, not just for the DVI team, but also for the relatives who might have felt “hurried up” by the crowd.

Unfortunately, not all relatives were careful and honest when identifying the remains based on the remnants of personal belongings found on the bodies. Certain family members might also have been under the impression that there would be only one opportunity for identification and that it was therefore their first and only chance of identifying their lost loved ones. This sense of urgency was further evidenced by the fact that in many instances the relatives who came to identify the victims were not necessarily the “biologically closest” relatives but the “geographically closest” available relatives. Again deciding who should and should not be allowed to identify a body would have been the responsibility of the legal authorities and denying those already present a chance to identify the bodies would have turned the crowd hostile.

Other chaotic issues

The neighbouring state Kerala police did nothing officially and specifically other than escorting their politicians and officials to the mortuary, thus adding to the unwanted and chaotic crowd and causing further confusion. Another unfortunate contributor to the chaos was the untimely announcement of huge financial compensation by the Government to the legal heirs of the deceased. The timing of the declaration of financial compensation, though appropriate, was definitely ill-considered considering that a few legal heirs wrongly believed that they had to claim a body to get the financial compensation declared by the Government. This unfortunately may have led to some deliberate misidentification of the bodies by some legal heirs even when the doctors were not convinced by their claims. In such situations, the final legal decision was that of the investigating police officer to conclude the inquest regarding the identification of the dead body. When the inquest-related papers (form no. 146 (i) and (ii) of the Karnataka state police) are handed over by the police to the doctors for a formal postmortem external examination, the name of the deceased will be written on the inquest related papers. The legal authority rests in the hands of the specific investigating police officer who is given the charge of the inquest of a particular body. The doctors have no legal authority to stop the relatives from taking away the body claimed by them and endorsed by the investigating police officer.

Issues related to DNA-based identification

When the doctors requested the relatives to go in for a DNA test to ensure an accurate claim for the body of their family member, a few refused, being absolutely certain that the body was that of their relative. Postmortem DNA samples had not been routinely collected from all the 158 dead victims because of a lack of cold storage facilities to preserve all the bodies in Mangalore until the DNA analysis was completed. The decision by the district administrators, taking into account the local customs and mood, to appease the family members by quick dispersal of the bodies was another factor that did not allow for the bodies to be kept until DNA analysis was done on all the bodies. On the evening of 23 May, based on the inquest-related documents furnished by the police, there were 22 unidentified and unclaimed bodies. On requisition by the legal authorities, postmortem DNA samples were collected by the doctors from these 22 unclaimed bodies and metal tags with a reference number were attached to them. Following the requisition by the police, blood samples for DNA analysis and matching with the DNA profile of the unidentified bodies were also collected from the relatives who had not claimed a body. The blood samples and postmortem DNA samples from teeth and muscle tissue were sent to the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting & Diagnostics, Hyderabad for DNA profiling and matching. Eleven bodies remained unidentified following DNA profiling and matching. In one instance, a male claimant of a victim lost his father and a brother in the disaster. Therefore, based on DNA evidence alone, it was not conclusively possible to distinguish whether the remains were those of the father or the brother. In another instance, one of the body remains exhibited a Y-chromosome match with a claimant father, suggesting that the victim was related to the claimant. The father, however, unfortunately refused to claim the body stating that the morphological features did not match those of his son. In yet another instance, the body remains were identified as the brother of a male claimant. However, since the male claimant had lost two brothers in the disaster, it was not possible to conclusively determine to which of the two brothers the body remains belonged, based on DNA evidence alone. In these three instances no further efforts were made to identify the remains. The limitations and intricacies of DNA matching should be considered before concluding that some of the bodies may previously have been misidentified.

A few recommendations

Some of the general recommendations based on our shortcomings include:

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DVI teams should include trained search and rescue teams (SAR), forensic specialists (pathologists, anthropologists, dentists and geneticists), law enforcement agencies (police and district administration), medical records technicians and paramedical staff working in tandem from the very start. Medical and dental experts should be at the scene to assist the SAR in collecting fragmented body parts. Volunteers from the general public should not be included in SAR teams.

Conclusion

All the issues highlighted here were not under the control of the police and administrators. Without doubt, the district administration and the legal authorities did a good job considering the difficult circumstances that prevailed on 22 and 23 May 2010 following the “Mangalore aircrash mishap”.

In future, if such a disaster were to be repeated in Mangalore, the district administration and the legal authorities should be more efficient in keeping away the “unwanted chaotic crowd”, the major obstacle in correctly identifying the bodies scientifically. It is “sad but true” that many avoidable practical problems pose a barrier in the way of forensic scientific identification of charred victims of mass disasters in a populous and developing country like India. Hopefully lessons have been learnt and the recommendations that have been suggested will be enforced.