Ahmedabad plane crash: DNA profiling completed for 11 victims, one body handed over to family

Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad on Thursday afternoon

The DNA sampling has been completed for 11 of the 270 victims of the Air India plane crash, officials at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital said on Saturday. One body has already handed over to the family and two more will be handed over today.

"...DNA samples of 11 deceased have matched till now. The mortal remains of one of the deceased have been handed over to the family... Two more will be handed over by today... It is a slow process and has to be done meticulously. We received one more body today recovered from the tail of the aircraft...," additional medical superintendent of Civil Hospital, Dr Rajnish Patel, told ANI.

The death toll from the tragedy that struck AI-171, which was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, rose to 270 on Saturday. This includes the 241 people who were onboard and other on-ground casualties that happened because of the plane crash.

Notably, the plane crashed just 32 seconds after taking off from the Ahmedabad Airport and flew into the building of the BJ Medical College, injuring as well as killing several poeple in and around the building.

After the crash, it was notified that DNA samples of the families would be necessary to identify the bodies of the victims as they were charred and barely recognisable. Since then, camps have been set up in the hospital premises for the families to give their DNA samples to match with the victims' bodies.

Shortly after the crash on Thursday, Air India issued a statement confirming the incident and later added that 241 out of the 242 people aboard the ill-fated plane were confirmed dead. There is only one person who has survived the crash and is currently undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited the lone survivor as well as the crash site to assess the ground situation. Meanwhile, PM Modi also chaired a high-level meeting at the Ahmedabad Airport over the incident.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Aviation Ministry have confirmed that the pilots had sent a Mayday call to the ATC. However, ATC was unable to maintain any contact with the plane after that.