Identification challenges from catastrophic aviation disasters: A forensic case series from 2 military air crashes

Accurate identification of victims in postcrash scenarios presents significant forensic challenges, particularly when the remains are extensively burned, fragmented, or carbonized. This study focused on multiple victims of 2 aircraft crashes, highlighting the intricate methods and obstacles encountered during their identification. Severe thermal damage, widespread tissue degradation, and advanced carbonization have hindered traditional identification techniques, requiring a multidisciplinary forensic approach that combines DNA analysis, dental profiling, tattoo recognition, and artifact examination. In addition to establishing the causes of death, which also required histopathological examinations, the difficulty involved in assigning the identity of each corpse made the forensic pathologists resort to all the information and details they could observe during the autopsy. Personal objects such as jewelry, tattoos, and prosthetic devices helped to reconstruct the identity of each corpse, in some cases being assigned identification by exclusion. Severe cranial fractures, rib and thoracic injuries, and extensive organ damage, such as pulmonary contusions, alveolar hemorrhages, and hepatic lacerations, were consistently observed in all cases. Forensic dental identification, which, in the present case, helped identify one of the victims through dental analysis. This study highlights the critical role of the identification of victims in circumstances in which the body is largely destroyed and underlines the importance and necessity of forensic identification through dental identification methods, which potentially represent one of the most effective methods that retain their accuracy regardless of the degree of destruction of the corpse.