DNA - based identification of victims of the Mangalore air crash of May 2010

The crash of a passenger aircraft at Mangalore on 22 May 2010 resulted in the loss of 158 lives. The district authorities handed over to claimant relatives, the remains of 136 victims whose identification was based on morphological features of, and/or personal effects on, the victims. The Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics undertook DNA profiling of the 22 remaining victims for comparison with DNA profiles of 32 claimant relatives. This analysis permitted the identification of 10 of the victims, whereas for the other 12 victim remains, it was conclusively shown that they were not the biological relatives of any of the claimants. These data indicate that in this disaster, which would be categorized as a closed system, several of the original identifications of the victims (prior to DNA testing of the remainder) had been erroneous. The policy implications of this exercise are discussed with regard to the formulation of disaster management plans in the country.