Wrong bodies repatriated to Britain from Air India crash

Grieving British families of the Air India crash victims have received the wrong bodies to bury in a bungled repatriation scheme.

- HOLLY EVANS

A lawyer acting for the bereaved said that the remains of several victims had been wrongly identified, with one family forced to abandon funeral plans after allegedly being told the coffin contained a different, unidentified body.

Only one passenger survived when the Air India flight 171 lost power and crashed into a building, seconds after departing Ahmedabad for London Gatwick, killing 260 people.

Cockpit audio recovered from the flight recorders shows the plane's junior first officer, Clive Kunder, asking its captain, Sumeet Sabharwal, why he had flipped the switches, starving the engines of fuel, according to a number of international media reports citing sources in the investigation.

Of the passengers and crew members who died, 52 were Britons.