Key facts
- The final report on the Air India 171 crash will miss its one-year deadline.
- The delay is due to ongoing engine analysis in the US.
- Families are still struggling to identify the remains of victims.
- One family received a casket containing mixed remains of their mother and an unidentified man.
- A UK inquest is underway for the unidentified man.
- The disaster resulted in 260 deaths, including passengers and people on the ground.
The final investigation report into the Air India 171 crash is set to miss its one-year deadline due to ongoing engine analysis being conducted in the United States. This delay comes as families continue to grapple with the identification of victims' remains, a process complicated by the scale of the disaster and alleged mishandling.
One year after the crash on June 12, families like the Patels are still seeking closure. Miten Patel recounted the harrowing experience of identifying his parents, Ashok and Shobhana Patel, and the subsequent discovery that his mother's casket contained mixed remains with an unidentified man. This led to a month-long delay in cremating his parents together.
A UK inquest has been opened into the death of the unidentified man, with the coroner, Fiona Wilcox, noting that palm prints and DNA have been sent to India without confirmation of identity. Wilcox described the situation as "obviously very unusual" nearly a year after the deaths.
The crash, which killed 260 people, was one of India's worst aviation accidents. The scale of the disaster, with many bodies severely charred and torn apart, presented immense challenges for emergency workers and forensic experts like Dr. Deepak Venkatesh. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has since used the crash as a case study for new identification guidelines, acknowledging that comprehensive disaster victim identification had not received adequate attention.
Lawyer James Healey-Pratt, representing families including the Patels, emphasized the need for transparency and accountability from Indian authorities, stating that no one in a position of authority has accepted responsibility. The process of returning remains was also fraught with difficulty, with one family in the UK having received the wrong remains.