Dana air crash inquest: update

John Obafunwa, Chief Medical Examiner at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, said that some of the passengers on the ill-fated flight died from inhalation of toxic fumes after the crash. “They must have been alive to inhale the smoke,” said Mr. Obafunwa, a professor of Forensic Pathology.

Mr. Obafunwa cited fume inhalation and multiple injuries as the causes of more than half of the deaths.

“Fractures to the skull, damage to the brain, punctures in the lungs, severe blood loss. All of these things can individually cause death,” he added.

Mr. Obafunwa also stated that the test results of the DNA tests carried out for unidentifiable bodies would be available next week. “We asked for samples from parents, siblings, and offsprings. These are what we'd use to compare victims' DNA profile and confirm the identity,” Mr. Obafunwa said.

Haphazard response 

The inquest, which began last month, continues to shed light on the uncoordinated and haphazard operations of the nation's emergency rescue agencies.

Testimonies given by the Fire Service, the police, and other emergency response teams showed that although relevant agencies arrived minutes after the crash, lack of appropriate equipment delayed rescue efforts.

 Julius Berger, a private construction company, had to bring in her cranes and other heavy duty equipment, over an hour after the crash, before rescue and response could be undertaken.

In a deposition to the inquest signed by Tanko Ashang, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) stated that crowd control was a major issue that hampered rescue efforts at the accident site.

 “Another clog in the wheel was co-ordination of the various stakeholders. Regular joint simulation exercises and informal meeting between members of various organizations will engender more effective collaboration in future operations,” said Mr. Ashang, NEMA's legal adviser. “A de-briefing meeting will soon be organized for all stakeholders by NEMA in order to gain from lessons learnt from this operation for better performance in future,” Mr. Ashang added.

Monday 30 July 2012

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Mangalore Air India Express crash victims bodies were misidentified - 8/8/2010

Thiruvananthapuram: The bodies of several of those who died when the Air India Express flight from Dubai crashed at the Mangalore airport on May 22 may have been misidentified by relatives, according to a paper published in the journal Current Science.

The finding by scientists at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in Hyderabad substantiate reports that have appeared in the media about such misidentification.

The air disaster had claimed 158 lives, including the passengers and crew. The remains of 136 persons were handed over after close relatives identified them. But the remaining 22 victims could either not be identified or had rival claimants.

The Centre, which had rushed two experts down to Mangalore on its own initiative and who used technique of genetic analysis to quickly put names to these as yet unidentified individuals.

There was considerable pressure on us to deliver results because everybody was waiting, said J. Gowrishankar, the Centre's director. There were grieving relatives who wanted the identification process over and done with. The district administration was concerned because there were no proper facilities in Mangalore to store bodies, which had begun to decompose. There was pressure from Air India too three of whose flight crew were among those unidentified.

DNA profiling involves picking up telltale genetic signatures carried in human chromosomes. Identifying a person is based on similarities in their genetic signature with those of a close blood relative, typically a parent, child or sibling.

The Hyderabad laboratory needed to produce DNA profiles from the body samples of 22 victims and match them with those from the blood samples of 32 relatives.

Identities of 10 persons could be established within three days of the samples reaching Hyderabad, say the Centre's scientists in their Current Science paper.

Further genetic testing, which took more time, conclusively showed that the remaining 12 bodies were not related to any of the claimants. That came as a surprise, since all those on the ill-fated aircraft were listed in the flight manifest.

It indicated that several bodies had been mistakenly identified by relatives, who needed to rely on a persons features and personal effects to do so, observed the scientists.

They suggested that when handling similar events in the future, the mortal remains of victims be released to families only after suitable and authentic identification was completed. If that was not practical, tissue samples must be taken at the time of autopsy for retrospective DNA analysis. Arrangements should be made, such as by using portable refrigerated caskets, to preserve human remains till the identification process ended.

Procedures for DNA-based victim identification should be incorporated as standard operating protocol in all disaster management plans.

They went on to point out that this would also require substantial expansion of the volume of routine DNA profiling activities being done in the country at present, so that adequate resources and personnel could be requisitioned in an emergency.

There are not enough trained DNA examiners in the country currently, explained Dr. Gowrishankar, one of the authors of the paper. It would be possible to expand their numbers substantially only if the State police forces across the country began using such genetic techniques far more extensively for various criminal investigations. The police, in turn, faced financial constraints as well as the lack of sufficient numbers of trained scientific personnel. Ways must be found to address both problems.

The full paper can be found on the Current Science website http://www.ias.ac.in/ currsci/

http://www.sfxkutam.com/news_index_arch3.asp?offset=860

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No coherent mechanism used to identify crash victims bodies - 6/7/2010

MANGALORE: Twelve of the 158 passengers of the Air India Express flight killed in the May 22 crash here had to be buried in unmarked graves.

According to the district administration, the 12 bodies could not be identified because of a mix-up. Some families took away the bodies that did not belong to them in the confusion that prevailed after the crash. The body of Mohammed Zubair Ziad (4) was taken away by a family that believed that it was the body of an adult.

Tales of woe

Narrating a similar incident, Vidya Dinker, an activist who was involved in the relief operations, said: One family had identified their kin and filled the claims form at the Wenlock Hospital. They then moved to another hospital to look for other relatives. By the time they came back, somebody else had taken the body. There was no coherent mechanism to identify the bodies, and some junior policemen were handling the process. Whereas, a senior police officer was managing traffic, she claimed.

Disaster Victim Identification guidelines issued by the Interpol were not adhered to immediately. Guidelines

Despite the Interpol's warning that visual identification is notoriously unreliable and should be avoided at all costs, 136 of the 158 bodies were handed over on this basis alone.

The Interpol, instead, recommends the use of medical and forensic tests.

According to a senior district official, the Interpol's guidelines were referred to 10 days after the crash.

No alternative

Inspector-General of Police Gopal B. Hosur said that there was no other alternative. All the bodies could not have been identified by DNA tests. There was no way we could have waited for the DNA tests. Keeping so many bodies in our possession for so long could have created a law and order nightmare, he said.

District Health Officer H. Jagannath said as the district’s storage facilities were woefully inadequate, the bodies would have started decomposing.

Better management

Chief Fire Officer H.S. Varadarajan said that some of the bodies could not be identified because they were robbed of jewellery by some of those who posed as rescue workers at the crash site. The police should have cordoned off the area and allowed only fire tenders to do their job, he said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police S. Girish, who was in-charge of the crash site, said: There were only around 10 firemen and public support was necessary.

Several places

Dr. Jagannath said that a major reason for the mix-up was that all the bodies were not taken to one place for identification. Several bodies were taken to private medical colleges.

According to Mr. Varadarajan, there was nobody at the crash site to direct the ambulances carrying the bodies to the right place.

Mistake

By the time the district administration realised its mistake and ordered that all the bodies should be shifted to the Wenlock Hospital, 28 bodies had been taken away, District Medical Officer B. Saroja said.

http://www.sfxkutam.com/news_index_arch1.asp?offset=1120

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Six US troops killed in Afghanistan chopper crash

(AFP) KANDAHAR — Six US troops were killed in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan, officials said Friday, indicating the incident was not believed to be the result of enemy fire.

The helicopter, a CH-53 Sea Stallion, went down in the volatile Helmand province, according to one US official who said: "Initial indications are that this was not hostile fire."

The dead were members of the US military, another US official told AFP.

In a brief statement, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

"However, initial reporting indicates there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the crash," it said.

The helicopter came down in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province at around 10:00 pm (0530 GMT) on Thursday "due to technical failure", the provincial Afghan army corps commander Sayed Mulook told AFP.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Taliban militia, which is leading a 10-year insurgency against the Afghan government and tens of thousands of NATO troops, claimed the insurgents had shot down the helicopter.

Mulook rejected the claim.

The Sea Stallion is a heavy transport aircraft capable of carrying about 40 people. The US officials did not say whether anyone else was on board, other than the six victims.

An ISAF spokesman told AFP in Kabul that the crash occurred late Thursday.

He stressed that "there was no enemy around", but could not give further information such as the terrain at the crash site or the weather.

In August, 30 US troops were killed when Taliban insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter, in the deadliest incident for US and NATO forces since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001.

The dead included 17 Navy SEALs and five other Navy sailors assigned to the SEAL unit. Seven Afghan troops and an interpreter were also killed.

Most of the Navy commandos came from the same SEAL team credited with killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a May raid in Pakistan.

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Padiham Cemetery's memorial revamp for East Lancashire's Dan-Air disaster victims

A MEMORIAL to 45 air-crash victims from East Lancashire has been revamped thanks to a town mayor.

Lettering on the Padiham Cemetery monument to those who perished in the 1970 Dan-Air disaster had become indistinct.

And relatives of those killed in the incident, which saw a jet crash into a mountain range near Barcelona, were keen to see the area overhauled.

Now town mayor Coun Bob Clark has stepped in and arranged for a stonemason to retouch the inscription to the ill-fated passengers.

Parks department staff have also revamped the small garden, where the memorial stands, in the Blackburn Road cemetery.

All 112 people on board the plane were killed, including four players from the all-conquering Britannia Wanderers football team, based at the Guy Street pub of the same name.

The victims also included holidaymakers from Burnley, Nelson, Barnoldswick, Worsthorne and Ramsbottom, which had set off from Manchester Airport.

Coun Clark said: “The families are happy with the work which was been carried out and I was glad I was able to assist.”

Last year family and friends of the victims staged a memorial service to mark the 40th anniversary of the crash.

The memorial was unveiled following a fundraising campaign by the former Padiham Urban District Council, under the chairmanship of Sheila Maw.

An official report into the disaster concluded that the jet had been talked down to disaster after misleading information from the cock-pit and the mistaken identity of a mystery blip on the radar screen.

Thursday 19th January 2012

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/burnleypendlerossendale/9482129.Padiham_Cemetery_s_memorial_revamp_for_East_Lancashire_s_Dan_Air_disaster_victims/

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