The Gujarat Health Department formally confirmed on Tuesday that 275 people were killed in the tragic crash of an Air India Boeing Dreamliner in Ahmedabad. Of these, 34 were ground-based residents and 241 were passengers and crew on the doomed flight. For the first time since the June 12 tragedy, an official death toll has been announced.
At first, authorities had held off on releasing a final count, stating that DNA identification procedures needed to be finished. Officials from the health department have now declared that every body has been recovered from the crash site. Six victims were verified by facial recognition, and 260 victims have so far been identified through DNA matching. The department also disclosed the demographic information of the deceased: the disaster claimed the lives of 16 children, 124 women, and 120 men. 256 of the 266 victims who were identified have already had their bodies returned to their families. The remaining bodies are still being identified.
Shortly after taking off, the plane, which was headed to London, crashed. It quickly lost altitude and collided with the residential campus of BJ Medical College in Meghani Nagar, a crowded neighbourhood just outside the perimeter wall of Ahmedabad airport. Only one of the flight's 242 passengers, a British-Indian man sitting in seat 11A, miraculously survived.
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The cause of the crash has not yet been identified. Currently being examined is the aircraft's black box, which contains important flight data and cockpit recordings. K Rammohan Naidu, the minister of civil aviation, dismissed media reports that the black box was damaged and might need to be sent overseas for additional analysis as speculative. "The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is currently examining the black box, which is located in India," he said.
Air India has put in place a number of safety and precautionary measures in reaction to the tragedy. The airline has made the decision to use 15% fewer wide-body aircraft for international operations. As part of increased safety oversight, this temporary reduction will be in place from now until June 20 and will last at least until mid-July. Investigations are still underway, and safety audits are being stepped up across the airline's fleet in what is considered to be one of the deadliest aviation accidents in India in recent decades.
Also Read: Black box of crashed Air India plane still in India: Minister
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