Every few hours today an ambulance or a refrigerated lorry left the Alpine field which has become the ad hoc marshalling yard for the vast operation to reach the wreckage of flight 4U 9525. Inside each vehicle, carefully concealed under layers of polythene wrapping, were some of the remains of the 150 people who perished on board.
The first bodies recovered from the site of the Germanwings crash began to be transferred some 48 hours after the disaster by the fleets of helicopters that now shuttle in a constant clatter between the temporary airfield in this ski resort and the isolated mountain valley where the Airbus A320 disintegrated.
But these sombre journeys, carried out under a blue light escort, are only the beginning of the grim process of identifying the passengers - school children, businessmen, mothers and fathers - whose bodies could not have survived the appalling impact of the crash intact.
Emergency workers and witnesses have spoken of the unspeakable sight that greeted them as they walked through the ravine where much of the wreckage is concentrated. One mountain guide told The Independent: “It is difficult to say but there are not whole bodies. There are only parts and they are small, the size of a laptop computer. It is beyond distressing to see what has been done to these fellow human beings.”
RRecovery teams are facing the dauntingly grim task of scouring an area spanning thousands of metres on tough mountain terrain in the task to find body parts of crash victims from the downed Germanwings flight.
In a chilling press conference outlining the nature of the flight’s last moments, French authorities detailed the difficulty in identifying victims and collecting body parts on the mountain morgue.
Considering the nature of the impact and the state of the bodies, it is likely to take weeks to account for all the parts.
“Imagine 150 victims in an area of over two hectares, between 1600 and 2000 metres,” said Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin.
The process is made easier by flags placed on the slope to mark locations of victims but the recovery is expected to last until the end of next week as teams face the even tougher task retrieving, identifying and delivering the bodies safely to ground.
“There were no more whole bodies, Fabrice Rouve, who works with the High Mountain division of the gendarmes told the New York Times.
The crash site is inaccessible on foot and by road and helicopters are unable to land on the slopes because there is nowhere flat enough to make a safe landing.
Recovery teams must be lowered down to the area by a cable and inexperienced officials must be accompanied by experienced rescuers to ensure they don’t slide down the slope.
Mr Robin detailed the “evacuation” process, where teams collect parts and send them back via helicopter.
“We put them on body bags in a stretcher and then they are put down in a nearby unit where the post mortem is carried out.
“Then we continue with the DNA identification.
“This is why these operations will take quite a long time.”
The technique is favoured by teams “due to the very difficult mountain terrain”.
It is from this starting point that the French authorities, helped by their German and Spanish opposites, must complete what is the first priority in the aftermath of the disaster - that of restoring to the dead their dignity and restoring their remains to those they have left behind.
In order to deal with this immense task, a small army of specialists has been deployed to the crash site and the surrounding areas to use the full battery of forensic, scientific and anthropological tools available to identify each of the dead.
They include forensic dentists, medical anthropologists and DNA specialists as well as several dozen dedicated search and recovery workers deployed to the isolated and treacherous crash site to label and catalogue each human fragment. Among them is a specialist Incident Response Team deployed by Interpol to co-ordinate what is in effect an international disaster with victims from around the world.
Brice Robin, the state prosecutor based in Marseille who is in charge of the French investigation, said: “The identification procedure is going to last several weeks. We are faced with 150 bodies which have undergone multiple trauma.”
The solution to this heartrending jigsaw lies in the bringing together of several sources of evidence, ranging from the pre-existing medical and personal records of the passengers to comparisons with the DNA of relatives, to the clues offered by a single bone.
Georges Leonetti, head of the medico-legal service in Marseille, said: “There is little chance that we will recover complete bodies. In order to achieve identification we therefore have to resort to the clues provided when people were still alive.”
Teams from Spain and Germany have already begun compiling medical dossiers on each of the victims, seeking identifying details which can range from dental records to operation scars to descriptions of appearance. DNA swabs have been taken from family members and similar work will be carried out in each of the countries affected by the disaster, including Britain.
Mr Leonetti said: “These are all details which allow us to compare the remains one against the other to arrive at an eventual identification.”
Among the most delicate work going on at the crash site in the Vallée de la Blanche and in laboratories across the south of France will be that of the forensic anthropologists who must comb the crash site for clues that tell the stories of the departed.
One expert likened the work to that of archaeologists as they sift a site, albeit one of the most recent and overwhelming trauma. A recovery worker at Seyne-les-Alpes said: “A single bone can tell you the sex or the size of an individual. Each clue must be recovered and entered into the process. It is careful, painstaking work.”
It is also work which, according to the worker, will potentially endure for months. He added: “It is our duty to give back their loved ones to the families of those who died, no matter how difficult that can be.”
Families of the victims are anxious to retrieve their loved ones bodies but “until the full DNA is carried out and finalised it’s only at that point I can give the bodies back,” said Mr Robin.
“But the DNA takes a while.”
Friday 27 March 2015
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germanwings-crash-how-a-small-army-of-specialists-will-begin-the-complex-and-harrowing-process-of-identifying-the-bodies-of-the-victims-10135435.html
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/germanwings-airbus-a320-crash-officials-outline-daunting-task-to-recover-bodies-from-mountain-morgue/story-fnizu68q-1227280482295
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