Airplane crash. Traumatologic findings in cases of extreme body disintegration

Abstract

A one-engined light aircraft struck the ground at high terminal velocity, producing a large impact crater. The captain and the five passengers were killed, their bodies being dismembered into several hundreds of mostly small tissue pieces. Besides identification, the pathologic investigation dealt with the morphologic features of high-speed impact trauma. In detail, the following peculiarities were found: detachment of the skin with typically sharp-edged margins and sometimes striaelike tears due to overstretching, intracutaneous hemorrhages according to the pleats of the clothing, a strikingly good preservation of the long peripheral nerves as a consequence of their especially high resistance to tearing, thin-layer hemorrhages under articular cartilages, separation of the penis in combination with detachment of its skin and hematoma of the glans or of the prepuce, subepicardial and subendocardial hemorrhages, petechiae of the conjunctivae and of the serous membranes (for example, parietal pleura), and petechial hemorrhages in the mucous membranes of larynx and trachea. Because of immediate circulatory arrest, these numerous hemorrhages must be attributed to mere local tissue bruising at the moment of impact.