TORONTO (AP) -- Sixteen weeks after the crash of Swissair Flight 111 shattered the bodies of those on board, police said Tuesday that remains of all 229 victims have been identified using state-of-the-art DNA techniques.
Police also said more than $1 million in U.S. currency destined for a Swiss bank has been recovered from the wreckage on the ocean floor off Nova Scotia. Still missing is a shipment of diamonds.The impact of the Sept. 2 crash was so great that traditional identification methods, including dental and X-ray records, were of minimal use in identifying the remains retrieved from the Atlantic.
Blood samples were collected from relatives of those on board, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police coordinated an operation at several forensic laboratories around Canada to match the samples with the recovered remains.
RCMP officers, at a news briefing Tuesday in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said DNA techniques had never before been used to such an extent following an air disaster. They said recent technological advances enabled them to complete tasks in days that might previously have taken weeks.