Ahmedabad Plane Crash: Families Endure Agonising Wait For Loved Ones' Remains

Pooja Sukhadare's voice, laced with exhaustion, captures the agonising uncertainty tormenting families desperately awaiting the remains of their loved ones after last week's devastating Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad.

For Pooja, who travelled from Dombivli in Maharashtra with Roshni Songhare's father and brother, the promised 72-hour turnaround time for DNA identification has long expired, replaced by silence and the reality of a painstaking process. Roshni was a crew member on the ill-fated flight.

"We visited the DNA collection centre yesterday," Pooja said, her words heavy with the weight of shattered hope.

"But we were told that matching samples is very difficult because out of 30 samples extracted, eight belonged to one person. In such cases, the process has to be done all over again." This prolonged wait is a setback for the family, who were among the first to submit their DNA samples on June 12, the day of the horrific incident.

Relatives of crew member Maithili Patil, residents of Nhava in Navi Mumbai, arrived in Ahmedabad on June 12 following the crash.

Family members of 32-year-old Anil Khimani, a mason and carpenter who worked in Gujarat's Kutch region and was on board the ill-fated flight, have also been camping in the city since the incident.

His father has been here since June 12 and gave his DNA sample the same day," said Mansukh, a relative of Khimani.

"An ambulance assigned by the government to take back the body has also arrived from Kutch, but we are still waiting to receive Anil's mortal remains." The family of 15-year-old Akash Patni is also waiting.

Akash was resting on a charpoy next to the tea stall run by his mother in the residential complex of the B. J. Medical College when the aircraft crashed.

The impact of the crash and the resulting fire was so intense that Akash had no time to escape and was charred.

"We received a call from the hospital yesterday confirming that the DNA samples have matched, but we have yet to get the body," said his aunt, Madhuben Patni.

Civil Superintendent Dr Rakesh Joshi attempted to reassure the grief-stricken families, appealing for patience amidst the time-consuming process of DNA matching.

"It's a delicate and meticulous process," he told the waiting family members while acknowledging their distress.

Repeated attempts to reach Forensic Science Laboratory Director H.P. Sanghvi for clarification were unsuccessful.

Rakesh Mishra, former director of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and now Director of the Tata Institute of Genetics and Society, offered insights into the scientific hurdles.

He explained that while DNA matching itself is not tedious, the sheer number of deaths and the condition of the tissues in such a severe accident significantly complicate matters.

"More damaged and degraded samples will fetch less data. In this case, some may have been severely damaged or burnt, and those will be challenging but it is doable." He also explained the complexities, noting that in the confines of an aircraft's economy class, bodies can be closely packed, leading to tissues melting and mixing due to extreme heat.

This, combined with the efforts during rescue work, can further degrade samples.

Despite the hurdles, Mishra remains hopeful. "It should take a couple of more days to finish the process," he estimated.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)