THE FIRST bodies of passengers on board the doomed Air France aircraft that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean 10 days ago have arrived back on Brazilian soil, where authorities have started the process of identifying them.
Sixteen bodies found over the weekend floating near where the aircraft disappeared were brought yesterday morning to the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha.
Another 12 bodies have been recovered since by ships combing the crash area, which is more than 1,000km off Brazil’s north-eastern coast. Authorities say these bodies will be transferred to the island in the next few days.
There they will undergo a quick process of “pre-identification”. This will include the taking of fingerprints when possible, the collecting of DNA samples and the cataloguing of personal effects on the bodies, such as rings, watches and clothes.
Later yesterday the bodies were to be flown to the mainland city of Recife, where they will undergo a full autopsy and identification. Five French pathologists, all specialists in identifying the victims of catastrophes such as the Mont Blanc tunnel fire, will assist Brazilian authorities. With 32 nationalities on board the flight, Interpol says it will help co-ordinate the process.
Brazilian family members have been asked by the country’s federal police to supply DNA material of missing relatives and photographs of them smiling, to help with possible dental identification, as well as details about birthmarks and tattoos.
Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris had 228 people on board, including three Irish doctors and two Aer Lingus employees, when it went missing on May 31st, around four hours into its flight.
As well as the 28 bodies, Brazilian and French naval ships involved in the recovery operation have also retrieved hundreds of pieces of debris ranging from large sections of what appeared to be parts of the plane’s wing and tail to oxygen masks and the intact door to one of the cabin’s toilets. Since a plane’s black boxes – the cockpit’s voice and date recorders – are typically kept close to the tail section, recovery of the tail could help to locate the missing boxes.
Air accident investigators have cautioned against rushing to judgment about what caused the plane to drop out of the sky when at its cruising altitude, a rare occurrence. The aircraft was crossing a zone of tropical thunderstorms but this alone should not have been enough to cause it to crash, say the plane’s makers, Airbus.
One theory is that faulty speed sensors caused the pilots to fly at the wrong speed. Airbus had recommended that these be replaced but Air France had yet to do so on the doomed plane.