Pakistan plane crash leaves grim task: Identifying victims from DNA

The bodies were pulled one by one from the ruins of damaged buildings and the smoldering wreckage of the Pakistan International Airlines plane that had crashed a day earlier into a crowded neighborhood of Karachi: 97 of them by Saturday. Many were charred beyond recognition, leaving families — some clutching pictures of their loved ones — to depend on DNA results from a laboratory to identify those they had lost. Most of the relatives had spent the night before at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, the city’s largest government hospital, and on Saturday in hot weather at the crash site in the Model Colony neighborhood, waiting for the grim word. To help with the identifications, DNA samples from relatives of 40 victims had been submitted at the forensic lab at the University of Karachi, officials said. Nineteen bodies were identified and handed over to the relatives after DNA tests and identification, according to health officials. And post-mortems were being carried out on the rest of the passengers of the plane, an Airbus A320 belonging to the national airline. An airline spokesman said on Saturday that the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder had been recovered from the crash site. The crash has cast a pall on the nation a day before Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Most of the passengers, including top banking executives, a senior civil servant and military officials, had been returning to Karachi for Eid. The pilot reported having lost engines as he tried to land, declaring, “Mayday, mayday!” PM Imran Khan has ordered an inquiry, and the country’s Safety Investigation Board, comprising senior air force and aviation officials, is leading the investigation.<br/>