On a Sunday morning in mid-March, I met with Dr. Francisco Sarmento, the doctor who presided over the Flight 447 autopsies. This turned out to be a strange time to visit. Two days before I met with Sarmento, the morgue where the autopsies took place was shut down by inspectors, citing “blood on the walls,” “corpses stored on top of each other on shelves and on the floor,” “a strong stench of putrefaction” and a parade of other horrors, like a corpse “being dragged across the floor by two employees.” (The morgue has since reopened.
Sarmento’s office in Recife turned out to be only somewhat more presentable. The floors were made of thin plastic that sagged under my feet as I walked, and the exterior windows were so heavily barred that it was difficult to see outside, but the tropical heat blasted in where panes were either broken or missing, giving the effect of a giant air-conditioner in reverse. It was easy to imagine that such a place, an underfinanced facility in a poor part of the world, might have trouble maintaining standards.
Sarmento is a big man, 6-foot-2 and slightly hunched, with a sad, doughy face all gathered up in worry. The crisis at the morgue had kept him from sleep, and he smiled wearily as he offered his hand. We took our seats by a table in his office, and he began to explain the crisis from two years earlier, with the fall of Flight 447.
“When we first found out, we were afraid,” he said. “We didn’t have space for 228 bodies. There were 33 nationalities on board, so we had to cooperate with other countries. We needed fingerprints, dental records, pictures of tattoos. We contacted Interpol right away, and they sent two people to work here and make the connection with other countries.”
Now Sarmento held up a finger with a look of irritation. “After one week,” he said, “the French government called and asked to send a representative to observe the autopsies.” Much of the
forensic work took place at another site, but final examinations of the bodies were done in Recife. “When they got here,” Sarmento continued, “it was 20 specialists who wanted to do the autopsies by themselves. Only them. We couldn’t allow that. So I allowed one person from Interpol to be in the autopsy room and one person from the French government. Of course, this became a diplomatic issue.”
He reached for a large projector on the table and flipped it on with a hum. The far wall lighted up, and we began viewing images from the autopsies. “We took pictures of everything,” Sarmento said, scrolling through pictures of watches, necklaces, earrings and rings, still clinging to blue-green wrists and necks. “We were able to make all of the identifications.” As the images flashed by, he added: “All the autopsies were observed by the French and by Interpol. Not one country, not one family, complained about the identifications.”
After a while, Sarmento flipped off the projector and pushed away from the table in his chair. “Ninety percent of the passengers had fractures in the arms and legs,” he said. “Many of them also had trauma in the chest, in the abdomen, in the cranium. We didn’t find anybody burned.” He leaned forward in his seat and wrapped his arms around his knees. “They were like this,” he said, holding the crash position and looking into my eyes. Then he sat up quickly and held his hand flat above the table. “When they hit,” he said, slamming it down, “
fractures. I believe the pilot tried to land in the water. This is consistent with the fractures. But when the bodies arrived, the lungs were already in a state of decomposition. We didn’t have conditions to see if anyone drowned.”
This hung in the air for a moment as I considered what he was suggesting.
“So it’s possible that some of them were still alive?” I asked.
Sarmento nodded. “Most died on impact,” he said. “Some could have survived.”