- Officials of the Gujarat health department said all the bodies have now been recovered
- 260 bodies identified by DNA match and 6 by facial recognition so far, DNA tests in progress for the rest
- Since the flight to London crashed, there had been no official announcement about the total number of deaths
All the bodies from the Air India Boeing Dreamliner crash in Ahmedabad have been recovered and several of the are still undergoing DNA matching, sources have said. Officials of the health department said all the bodies have now been recovered and so far, 253 bodies have been identified through DNA and six by facial recognition.
Since the flight to London crashed on June 12, there had been no official announcement about the total number of deaths. The authorities have said a figure could be arrived at only after the DNA matching took place.
256 bodies have been handed over to families so far. The DNA identification of the remaining bodies is still in progress.
The Boeing Dreamliner bound for London had started losing height and crashed seconds after the take-off, landing on residential campus of BJ Medical College in Meghani Nagar, located .just outside the airport perimeter. Only one passenger out of the 242 on board -- a British-Indian man seated in 11A -- had survived.
It is not yet known what caused the crash. The black box of the aircraft is being examined.
Asked about media reports suggesting the black box is damaged and could be sent abroad for data extraction, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu called it "speculation". "The black box is very much in India, and it is currently being investigated by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau or AAIB," he said.
Air India has responded to the crash with a slew of safety and prevention measures that includes cutting down on the use of its wide-body planes for international flights by 15 per cent. The cuts will be implemented between now and 20 June and will continue thereafter until at least mid-July.
