GARDA COMMISSIONER Fachtna Murphy is sending two members of the force to Brazil to help identify the remains of victims of last week’s Air France disaster. The bodies were pulled from the Atlantic after the crash of the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
The gardaí will seek to determine if any of the bodies are those of three Irish doctors who were on the FR447 flight. The Irish victims were Dr Aisling Butler, Dr Eithne Walls and Dr Jane Deasy.
The officers being sent to Brazil are Det Insp Joseph Kinsella and Det Sgt Jarlath Lennon, both of whom are attached to the Garda Technical Bureau.
Det Insp Kinsella was sent to Thailand after the tsunami in December 2004. He assisted in the international aid effort, liaising with the families of missing Irish people and assisting in the repatriation of victims’ remains.
He also helped establish a fingerprint database to assist in the identification of tsunami victims.
Speaking at the Garda College, Templemore, Co Tipperary, Mr Murphy extended his sympathies to families of the victims.
He said the Garda would do all it could to assist in identifying the deceased.
“My officers will travel to Rio de Janeiro in the coming days and use their experience and expertise to support the important task now underway in Brazil,” he said.
Garda liaison officers would continue to provide assistance to the families of the three Irish women who were on the Air France flight.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said no words could comfort the grieving families. “But the identification and repatriation of their remains would help bring a small measure of closure for them,” he said.
A French nuclear submarine has now joined the search for the aircraft’s black boxes, which might offer clues as to why it plummeted into the ocean.
The Brazilian air force, naval service and teams of navy divers have located large pieces of wreckage from the Airbus A330. The remains of 41 of the victims have also been taken from the water. A spokesman for the Brazilian military said a French search ship had seen more bodies in the ocean but had been unable to recover them because of poor weather.
