Some victims of Spain air crash may never be identified

"Will anybody remain unidentified? I can’t say at this moment but the possibility exists," Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said during an interview with news radio Cadena Ser.

Eighty-six bodies have so far been identified and the task should be completed using DNA techniques for the remainder over the coming days, he added.

"We are working day and night, and well, but since the process started it has become more difficult than we expected due to the bad state of some of the DNA samples," said Rubalcaba.

"If the sample can be matched to someone close like a brother or father it is easy but when there are only distant family members available it becomes much more complicated," he added.

Only 19 people survived Wednesday’s crash shortly after a Spanair MD-82 plane took off from Madrid for the Canary Islands.

The death toll rose to 154 on Saturday after a woman who initially survived despite suffering burns to 72 percent of her body died in a hospital.

Rubalcaba reiterated that the government was taking great care to make sure that the bodies are properly identified.

The issue is a sensitive one in Spain because the bodies of 62 peacekeeping troops who died in an air crash in 2003 were improperly identified and many families buried the wrong bodies as a result.

The peacekeeping troops, returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan aboard a Ukrainian-chartered, Russian-made Yakolev-42 plane, died when the plane crashed near the city of Trabzon, Turkey on May 26, 2003.

The misidentification of the bodies was a major embarrassment for the conservative government in power at the time.

Rubalcaba had previously said that most bodies would be identified by Sunday.

Photo: AP