The bodies of the victims of the Boeing 737-800 that fell in the Brazilian Amazon, Friday, September 29, after colliding with a smaller plane, are in such bad condition that it may take as long as two years before authorities are able to identify all the 149 passengers and six flight crew aboard.
This information was given by José Flávio Bezerra, Brasília’s Coroner’s Office director (IML), who is in charge of identifying the bodies of those on flight 1907. According to Bezerra, this delay is due to "the state of fragmentation and decomposition" of the bodies.
The Coroner’s Office is converting five refrigerated trucks to receive and store the bodies. The identification work should be done in Brazilian capital Brasília.
Relatives are being asked to bring all kinds of information to the IML, including documents and descriptions about the passengers including distinctive characteristics and the clothes and other objects they were wearing.
The Brazilian authorities announced, yesterday, October 2, that they had already located the bodies of about 100 people. According to Air Force commander, brigadier Luiz Carlos da Silva Bueno, these bodies were found close together, about one kilometer (0.6 mile)from the plane’s landing gear.
Bueno informed that the bodies are in an area of dense vegetation and that they will need to open a clearing in the jungle before starting the removal of the bodies. A few relatives of the victims haven flown over the area on Monday and, according to the Air Force official, were impressed at the difficulty of the rescue work.
The Air Force chief also said that none of the two planes involved in the accident had received authorization to change their flight altitude. One of the explanations for the collision between the Boeing and the Legacy aircraft was that one of then was flying higher or lower than they were supposed to.
According to the flight plans, the Boeing should be flying at 37,000 feet while the Legacy was supposed to fly at 36,000 feet.
Brazilian Defense Minister Waldir Pires wouldn’t say when the rescue of those 100 bodies already located would start. "We want to bring them as fast as we can," he told reporters.
Gol has already received the two black boxes from the plane that crashed and they should send them today to be analyzed by Boeing in the United States. Representatives of the Brazilian government will also follow these investigations.