Identification of Deceased Children of Nepal Airlines Crash through Dental Age Estimation

Abstract

Identification of victims in a disaster is a challenging process and requires use of both primary and secondary identifiers. Development of teeth is one of the routinely used methods of age estimation and helps in establishing deceased biological profile. Two children who lost their lives in 2014 in Nepal Airlines crash, were looked for the dental developmental status. One of the children had primary dentition, while the other had mixed dentition. This helped us in estimating age of these individuals reconciled with the chronological age provided by the relatives. This led to the identification of both the children, thus, emphasizing teeth as important means of identification in any disaster. Keywords: dental age; dental identification; disaster victim identification; forensic dentistry; forensic odontology.