ODONTOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION OF THE VICTIMS OF FLIGHT AI.IT-5148 AIR DISASTER LYON-STRASBOURG 20.01.1992

The authors report on the contribution of odontological identification of the flight AI.IT 5148 air disaster victims, which occurred on 20th January 1992. The identification procedure was difficult due to large numbers of bodies and mutilations and required the involvement of mul tidisciplinary teams composed of odontologists, forensic pathologists, radiologists and biologists. The authors set up a simple, discriminan t classification which was easy to handle by a multidisciplinary team. Four groups were defined according to the matching characteristics be tween ante and post mortem data. Perfect matching characteristics betw een ante and post mortem data were achieved in only 44 cases (Group A) . Partial matching characteristics between ante and post mortem data w ere achieved in 12 cases (Group B). In 29 cases, the insufficiency or absence of odontological data (Group C and D) did not enable the victi m to be identified. The results of the investigations showed that the dental examination alone enabled 17 victims to be identified and by in cluding a morphological examination the figure reached 33. By the end of the investigations, 85 of the 87 victims were positively identified . Odontological identification is an essential, accurate and rapid met hod with allows a body to be identified from its dental characteristic s. This anthropometrical method Of identification is included with the descriptive and the biological methods, The authors present their exp erience in performing a formal identification of 44 victims in less th an 15 days.