Members of the Erebus disaster identification team at the University of Auckland mortuary.
Post-mortems and victim identification
By the time the second flight carrying bodies from the Erebus disaster crash site arrived on 11 December 1979, the pathology teams tasked with determining cause of death had completed post-mortem examinations on the first 114 bodies. They completed the remainder by 21 December. As was subsequently reported by the chief air accident investigator, the examinations indicated that:
All the victims were killed by the injuries received at the initial impact rather than as a result of burns sustained in the subsequent fire.
The pathology teams worked alongside dentists, police fingerprint experts and photographers, and members of the Disaster Victim Investigation (DVI) squad. During the post-mortems the DVI team recorded on the DVI forms that had accompanied each body or body part from Antarctica information that would assist with identification, such as sex, age, race and visible identification marks. Once the DVI form was completed it was sent to the Records Section, where information collected by the dentists, fingerprint experts and photographers was added, along with details of the property gathered from the deceased.
Embalmers
Embalmers offered their services to police to facilitate the return of bodies to the families. They also assisted the pathologists by arresting the process of decomposition in 130 bodies, and the DVI teams by restoring the features of 34 otherwise unidentifiable bodies.
The Reconciliation Section subsequently matched information on the DVI and deceased property forms with other information received, such as medical and dental records. The Enquiry Section attempted to find any missing information. Once identification was confirmed, the DVI form was sent to the Inquest Section so the body could be released to next of kin. Funeral directors and embalmers worked hard to prepare the victims for burial or cremation.
In all, 213 of the 257 victims were identified. This identification rate of 82.9% compared well to the results achieved after other air crashes. The remaining 44 victims could not be positively identified; some bodies may not have been recovered from the crash site.
Next page: The special inquest
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