Identification of several persons carried to their deaths in the February airliner crash into Lake Pontchartrain is being sought by means of laundry marks, according to Dr. Nicholas J. Chetta, Orleans parisl coroner.
Authorization for this means of identification was requested Monday by Chetta from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Bureau of Identification.
Never before, Chetta said, have laundry marks been used in establishing the identity, for legal purposes, of airplane
crash victims, although this method has long been accepted by the courts of the land,
According to Chetta, who is in charge of the identification of the crash victims, parts of
28 bodies have been positively identified, and six provisional identifications have been made,
"We're trying to get authorization to make identification from laundry marks on six oth-l ers," Dr. Chetta said, "These people (the survivors) have waited long enough,"
The Eastern Air Lines Jetliner carried a total of 58 persons to their death, when it crashed.
Chetta also said that millions of dollars in insurance claims
are held up for lack of identifi-i cation of victims.
If the coroner gets permission; to use the laundry marks for! identification, identities of 40 persons will thus far have been
established. As for the 18 other
victims, Dr. Chetta said, "We have absolutely nothing to work on,"
