Identifying the remains of the 157 people killed in an Ethiopian Airlines plane crash may take up to six months, the airline said in a document on Saturday.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 plummeted into a field minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa bound for Nairobi last Sunday, killing all on board. In a document distributed by the airline to family members who lost loved ones in the crash, Ethiopian Airlines laid out a timetable for the return of victims’ belongings and the distribution of death certificates.
“DNA result will be announced approximately between 5 to 6 months from the date the sample is collected,” read the document. Relatives of the victims could submit DNA samples in Addis Ababa or at Ethiopian Airlines offices worldwide, it added.
The Ethiopian plane’s voice and flight data recorders are in Paris, where French, Ethiopian and American investigators will try to determine what went wrong.
