Families received wrong remains of Air India crash victims

Several people on the ground also died while only one passenger survived the crash

LONDON:

Relatives of a British victim killed in last month's Air India crash received a casket that contained mixed remains, a lawyer representing several families and UK media said Wednesday.

The family of a separate victim received the remains of another person, according to James Healy-Pratt, who is representing 20 British families who lost loved ones in the disaster.

A total of 241 people on board the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner died when the plane crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad in western India on June 12.

Some 169 Indian passengers and 52 British nationals were killed, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in terms of the number of British fatalities.

Several people on the ground also died while only one passenger, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, survived the crash. Healy-Pratt told the Press Association news agency that the return of victims' remains had been marred by serious errors, which had been identified following a probe by a British coroner.

"In the first two caskets that were repatriated, in one of the caskets, there was co-mingling of DNA which did not relate to the deceased in that casket or the casket that accompanied it," he said.