Three days after the crash, only 35 bodies had been handed over to relatives from an overall official death toll of 270.

Dozens of anxious family members sat outside an Indian hospital on Friday waiting to collect bodies of loved ones killed in the Air India plane crash, as doctors worked to gather dental samples from the deceased and run identification checks.

DNA identification is the gold standard for identifying human remains, especially after mass fatality events in which bodies might not be easy to identify otherwise.