Optimized mass fatalities victim identification: an airplane crash as a test case

CORACH D; A. SALA ; CECILIA BOBILLO; MERIELA CAPUTO; EVGUENIA ALECHINE

Melbourne

Congreso; 25th World Congress of the International Society for Forensic Genetics; 2013

ISFG

Efficient corpse tissue preservation, automated DNA extraction, sensitive DNA quantization and expert analysis software makes possible to design highly efficient workflow that speed up the mass disaster victim identification process from highly fragmented human bodies. We describe the workflow employed in the reconstruction of the identity of 22 victims fragmented in 418 remains emerged from the airplane crash occurred on May 18, 2011 in Río Negro Province, Argentina. Fatal victims identification was performed by comparison with first degree relatives by autosomal and Y-STRs analysis. A SAAB plane carrying 19 passengers and three crew members (3 females and 19 males) exploded at high altitude over the soil level (approx. 2000m). All bodies were severely fragmented and not complete skulls but a high number of isolated cranial bones were found. Remains were collected at the disaster area and sent to Buenos Aires where samples selection took place and preserved in 50 ml polypropylene tubes containing solid Sodium Chloride. DNA extractions from muscle and bone were performed using a semi-automated DNA purification system; quantization was carried out by real-time PCR using commercial kits and data analysis performed with the help of expert software. The implementation of this strategy allowed us to identify all the victims in one week. However, the complete task of identifying all remains recovered within the disaster area took over ten months due to wide dispersion of fragments and the court decision to identify each morphologically recognizable human tissue found within the disaster area.