REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Professor Pavel Ivanov, a Russian DNA expert, has arrived here to assist in the identification of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 victims. He joined the national police`s Disaster Victim Identification team on Thursday.

"Professor Ivanov has already started working on identifying the remains that have been found," the head of the national police`s health and medical centre, Brigadier General Mussadeq Ishaq, said.

Ishaq hopes that Prof Ivanov`s participation will speed up the identification process. "The DVI team will work hard with the expert team from Russia so that the DNA tests could soon be finished," Ishaq said.

He stated the identification process would take about two weeks. "The DVI team would reveal the results of the identification all at once. Considering the procedures involved, it is impossible to announce one by one the results of the identification to the families of the victims," Ishaq explained.

He said at least 30 bags of the victims’ remains and five bags of the victims` belongings had been sent to the Kramat Jati police hospital. The Russian-made commercial plane with 45 people on board -eight Russians, 35 Indonesians, one Frenchman, and one American- was on a demonstration flight when it crashed into Mount Salak, Bogor, West Java, on Wednesday afternoon (May 9).

The rescue team discovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the plane on Tuesday, which will help the National Committee of Transportation Safety (KNKT) investigate the cause of the accident. Efforts are still under way to find the flight data recorder, which is also crucial to the investigation. 

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