The Ethiopian carrier says DNA testing of the remains of the people on board flight 302 may take up to six months. In the meantime, it offered bereaved families charred earth from the plane crash site to bury at a mass burial in Addis Ababa on Sunday. Passengers from more than 30 nations were aboard.
Eight days ago, 157 persons on-board Ethiopian Airlines flight to Nairobi from Addis Ababa lost their lives in a fatal air crash.
Dagmawit Moges, Ethiopian minister of transport, told reporters in Addis Ababa that temporary death certificate had been given, and a final one would be issued in two weeks’ time, adding that collection of DNA samples from relatives had begun.
Moges assured that victim identification would be done to scientific international standards, and internationally recognised organisations such as Interpol were going to be involved in the process, she said.
Relatives of the passengers killed in the incident are being encouraged to provide DNA samples either in Addis Ababa or at any overseas offices of Ethiopian Airlines.
As families await results from the investigation, the airline held funeral service on Sunday at Holy Trinity Cathedral in the capital, Addis Ababa.
“We were told by the company that we will be given a kilo (of earth) each for burial for a funeral they will organise,” said one family member who asked not to be named.
The return of remains – most of which are charred and fragmented – would take up to six months, the papers said, but in the meantime earth from the crash site would be given.
Some relatives said that they would only get full closure when at least some body parts were handed over to them.
“The soil came as it became impossible to identify bodies and hand over remains to family members,” one family member reportedly said, adding: “We will not rest until we are given the real body or body parts of our loved ones.”
However, Moges said Ethiopian Airline was still waiting for the results and were making all the necessary efforts to identify the cause of the accident.
“This kind of investigation needs considerable amount of time to reach concrete conclusions,” she said.
Flight data had already indicated some similarities with a crash by the same model of plane during a Lion Air flight in October. All 189 people on-board were killed. Both planes crashed within minutes of take off after pilots reported problems.
The grounding of the 737 MAX jets has had no immediate financial impact on airlines using the planes, but it will get painful for the industry the longer they do not fly, companies and analysts said.
