Gay Son Died in Plane Crash, Family Received Another's Remains

A Mother’s Struggle to Find Her Son’s Body After Tragic Air Crash

The mother of a gay man who died in the deadly June 12 Air India crash is facing an agonizing situation. She was sent the wrong body for burial, and now she is desperately trying to locate her son’s remains. Other families have also reported similar issues with the handling of their loved ones’ bodies.

Amanda Donaghey, the mother of 39-year-old Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, traveled from France to India to help identify her son’s body. Fiongal died alongside his husband, Jamie Meek, in the Air India plane crash. The couple had gone to India to celebrate their wedding anniversary and had posted a video on social media just hours before the tragic incident. The crash occurred in Ahmedabad, killing all but one of the 243 passengers aboard the Boeing aircraft.

Donaghey traveled to India to provide a blood DNA sample to help identify her son’s remains. She hoped to bury him next to his husband. However, instead of receiving her son’s body, she was given a casket that was supposedly part of his remains. A British coroner later informed her that the body in the casket was not her son’s.

This revelation was devastating for Donaghey. “It was heartbreaking,” she told The Sunday Times. “We don’t know what poor person is in that casket. This is an appalling thing to have happened.”

Donaghey has learned from British officials that another coffin returned to the U.K. contained the remains of multiple people. Since discovering she received the wrong remains, she has been questioning whether she will ever be able to lay her son to rest alongside his husband.

“We have spent every day since then on the phone to the Foreign Office, trying to get a response on where Fiongal is,” Amanda Donaghey said. “All the time, I feel like I’m just standing on the edge of a black hole thinking, ‘Has he been disposed of?’”

She expressed a deep desire to perform the necessary rites for her son so the family can move forward. “We would like to be able to do the rites necessary for Fiongal in order for us to move on as a family. And that is what is missing. We don’t know what poor person is in that casket,” she added. “And we would now like the British government to do everything in its power to find out, and bring Fiongal home.”

Twelve other caskets belonging to British nationals were shipped to the U.K., even though 52 people perished in the crash. Of those, ten contained correctly identified bodies.

James Healy-Pratt, an international aviation lawyer representing 20 families who lost loved ones in the crash, shared his concerns with The Sunday Times. “Losing a loved one in an air accident is traumatic in itself. These families deserve answers about how this co-mingling of DNA and misidentification of remains occurred. Discussions are ongoing with the UK police and the Foreign Office.”

Greenlaw-Meek and his husband ran the Wellness Foundry, a health and wellness lifestyle company that offers psychic readings, tarot, reiki, and yoga in the English cities of London and Ramsgate. The couple began dating in 2019 and married in various ceremonies in 2022.