Mangalore crash: Bodies of 104 victims identified

Bodies of 104 victims of the Air India Express plane crash have been identified and handed over to relatives, a top official said on Sunday.

"A total of 104 bodies have been identified and handed over to relatives. Fifty four bodies are yet to be identified," Karnataka Director General of Police Ajai Kumar Singh said at the crash site. Earlier, Deputy Inspector General of Mangalore Police Gopal B Hosur had said 115 bodies had been identified so far.

Singh said DGCA officials are yet to recover the Cockpit Voice Recorder, commonly known as the black box, of the ill-fated aircraft, which crashed in Mangalore on Saturday, killing 158 passengers and crew members.

Of the 166 passengers on board, eight people survived the accident. Asked if Boeing, the manufacturer of the aircraft, has sent a team to assist the investigation, Singh said he was not aware of it. The Air India Express flight crashed soon after landing at Bajpe airport on Saturday morning, after overshooting the runway, and plunged down a deep ravine.

Of the eight survivors, four received minor injuries while three sustained major injuries. One person also escaped unhurt. Majority of the victims were from Kasargod in Kerala. The entire six-member crew, including the two pilots, perished in the accident. The passengers comprised 105 men, 32 women, four infants and 19 children.

An Airport Authority of India official said there was no distress call from the pilots when they got clearance for landing the plane, nearly seven km away from touchdown. The air mishap was the first major plane crash in the country in nearly a decade.