How important is DNA to the identification effort?

Howard Baum

There were two reasons that we were able to complete the 265 victim identifications from American Airlines flight 587 in just 6 weeks. First, the infrastructure was already in place because of the World Trade Center identification effort and there was no extra ramp-up time needed in the laboratory. Second, our goal with respect to the airline crash was to identify all the victims rather than all the remains, so we knew when our job was over.

The degree to which human remains are fragmented or degraded determines the value of DNA analysis in the identification process. Intact, large body parts lend themselves to identification by less costly methods, such as X-ray, dental examination, and fingerprints. However, DNA analysis is the only viable method for identifying severely fragmented or degraded remains. Even when whole bodies are recovered, DNA analysis still may be the best approach when materials that are necessary for other modalities—for example, dental records or verified body identification by friends or relatives—are unavailable. Remains often are identified by multiple methods, which may or may not include DNA. For example, only approximately 25 percent of the identifications of airline crash victims are generally made by DNA exclusively.

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