The disaster victim identification team on Thursday (14/1/2021) confirmed the identities of six more people who had been aboard the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 plane that crashed on Saturday.
By
KOMPAS TEAM
·4 minutes read
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The disaster victim identification team on Thursday (14/1/2021) confirmed the identities of six more people who had been aboard the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 plane that crashed on Saturday. They were five passengers and a flight attendant. Their identities were established based on fingerprint records and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) matching.
That raises the number of identified victims to a total of 12. The six newly recognized bodies were those of Ricko, 32; Ihsan Adlan Hakim, 33; Yohanes Suherdi, 37; Pipit Priyono, 23; Supianto, 37 and Mia Tresetyani, 23. Mia was a flight attendant on the plane.
"We got three DNA samples that led to the identities of two victims (Ricko and Pipit). Meanwhile, we identified the others through fingerprint records,” said the head of the DNA laboratory of the National Police\'s Medicine and Health Center, Sr. Comr. Ratna, at the Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, yesterday.
Because of the ongoing pandemic, the process of identifying the victims\' bodies cannot be rushed. Officers have to avoid potential exposure to Covid-19 from the bodies in the forensic room. The process of getting samples of the victims\' bodies should also not be too long or involve many people.
We got three DNA samples that led to the identities of two victims.
The condition of bodies at the postmortem post varied greatly, such that DNA samples could not be obtained from some of the bodies received. Postmortem is a term for collecting identification data from the incident site. The team continued to make efforts to identify the bodies through other means, for example through property collected at the incident site. The property items will be matched with descriptions provided by families of the deceased.
As of 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, the joint team has collected 139 bags containing human parts and 46 property bags. The team has also collected DNA samples from families that led to 59 victims. Three families had not yet submitted DNA samples for identification purposes.
The identification is eagerly awaited by family members, including Supeno Hendi Kiswanto, the father of Okky Bisma, who worked as a steward on the plane. "I was waiting for additional body parts from the identification team. However, it seems it could take a long time. The family agreed to let them go," said Supeno at the Police Hospital.
The Sriwijaya Air plane, which had been serving flight number SJ-182 from Jakarta to Pontianak, lost contact on Saturday (9/1/2021) at 4:40 p.m. The plane crashed in the waters of the Thousand Islands regency off the Jakarta coast, specifically between Lancang Island and Laki Island in the district of South Thousand Islands.
More findings
Yesterday, the state-owned search and rescue ship Karna arrived at North Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok Port, transporting a bag containing wreckage of the plane and 36 bags of body parts and belongings of passengers and crew members.
Later, the captain of the vessel handed the bags over to the National Transportation Safety Committee and the disaster victim identification (DVI) team. The search operation on the sixth day focused on the search for the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), casualties and aircraft wreckage. A total of 268 divers with the help of robots and other equipment worked under the water and 4,000 other officers were moving on the water surface. The search area was expanded to find objects that may have been carried further away by the currents.
The search team on the Baruna Jaya IV research ship found 34 parts of wreckage from the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 aircraft on the first day of the operation. The crew on this ship found the wreckage of the plane on the seabed, 52 meters away from where the flight data recording was found.
Meanwhile, the Navy’s First Fleet Command (Koarmada 1) deployed various ships and personnel to locate the CVR. "Our search continues to focus on victims," said the commander of the First Fleet Command, Rear Adm. Abdul Rasyid, in Jakarta.
Since the search operation, the Indonesian Navy has deployed warships and diver teams consisting of the Frog Troop Command (Kopaska), Marine Amphibious Reconnaissance (Taifib) and the Koarmada I Underwater Rescue Service (Dislambair) to assist in the search operation.
This effort involved an underwater robot (ROV) from the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, operated to search for the CVR. An ROV is a remote controlled underwater vehicle. ( DIV/ DAN/ VAN/ EDN)