Some Air India plane crash victims' families in U.K. were sent the wrong remains, lawyer says

London — The families of some British victims of the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad have discovered that remains repatriated to the U.K. were wrongly identified as being their loved ones, a lawyer who says his firm is representing over 20 victims' families told CBS News. Of the 242 people on board the Air India flight from Ahmedabad to London's Gatwick airport that crashed on June 12 just minutes after takeoff, 52 were British citizens.

The cause of the crash has not been confirmed, but a preliminary report released earlier this month by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau found that cockpit cutoff switches for fuel supply to both of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner's engines had been switched, one after another, within one second, leading to both engines losing thrust.

James Healy-Pratt, an aviation lawyer who said he was representing a number of U.K. families, told CBS News the remains of at least 12 British victims of the crash had been repatriated to the U.K., but that two of them had been misidentified.

"There was one family who believed they had accompanied their loved one back from India, having gone out there to give DNA for the identification, and then (when they returned to the U.K.) were informed that the remains in the casket were nothing to do with them," Healy-Pratt told CBS News.