The Indonesian disaster victim identification (DVI) team has found it difficult to identify the remains of the victims of last week’s Cessna Piper Navayo Chiftain PA31 crash in East Kalimantan due to their condition.
Budi, of the Indonesia DVI, said that the remains that were severely damaged and too difficult to identify at the AW Syahranie hospital in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, and would be sent to Jakarta for further investigation.
“We have been working very hard round the clock, matching the DNA of the victims and those of their respective family members,” Budi said on the phone on Tuesday.
Matching the DNA, according to Budi, was the most effective way of revealing the identities of all the victims, especially due to the condition of the remains.
He said the family members of each of the victims had arrived in Samarinda for that purpose.
He also expressed gratitude to the Australian Embassy for having brought the son of Australian Peter John Elliott, one of the victims, from Australia to Samarinda.
Elliot’s remains were found among the wreckage of the aircraft on the slope of Mt. Mayang on the border of Bontang East Kutai.
Budi said that although Elliot was the only foreign victim, his body was difficult to identify because of severe burns.
He also said that despite such difficulties, the DVI team was confident it would be able to identify each of the victims’ bodies, but it would take time to ensure accuracy.
“The conditions of the victims were similar to the victims of the Sukhoi crash. The Sukhoi victims were evacuated earlier while those of the Cessna were evacuated in pieces and mixed with the elements thanks to the rain,” he said.
The flaming wreck of the Cessna plane that went missing in East Kalimantan last week was discovered late on Sunday. All the four passengers, including the pilot, were dead.
The plane, chartered by Elliott Geophysics International to survey a coal mining site, was carrying four men — pilot Capt. Marshal Basir, two Indonesians, and the company’s Australian owner, Peter John Elliot — when it vanished from the radar screens of local aircraft control on Friday evening.
The Cessna left the airport in Samarinda on Friday morning for what was to have been a 90-minute survey of a coal mining site near the city of Bontang, about 120-airline kilometers away.
After the aircraft failed to return, four helicopters and a 400-personstrong search-and-rescue team attempted to find the Cessna.
The aircraft was located on the slopes of Mt. Mayang in East Kutai regency.
Wednesday 29 August 2012
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/08/29/crash-victims-identification-process-continues.html
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