While the victim’s name has not been released at the request of his family, the remains of a male victim of the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York have finally been identified.

First victim identified since March 2015

As reported by NBC New York, the city’s medical examiner said on Monday that while they cannot release the man's name, the victim was not a firefighter, police officer or first responder at the scene of the terror attack. This sees the first identification of the outstanding remains of the victims since March 2015.

Dr.

Barbara Sampson, the Chief Medical Examiner, said DNA analysis has become more sophisticated, allowing the successful retesting of unidentified remains to give closure to families of the victims of 9/11. Sampson continued by saying the Chief Medical Examiner’s office has been working to identify the remains since the days following the attacks in 2011 and will continue with their commitment with the use of the most advanced methods now available.

Advanced DNA testing matches bone fragments to victims

The DNA testing and other methods are being used to match bone fragments taken from the scene belonging to the 2,753 victims of the attack, where radical Islamists crashed two planes into the Twin Towers, causing an inferno which led to the buildings’ collapse.

So far the Chief Medical Examiner’s office has successfully identified the remains of some 1,641 victims, leaving 40 percent of the remains to still be identified.

Speaking for the medical examiner’s office, Julie Bolcer told the New York Post that the new and far more sensitive technology was introduced earlier in the year and led to the latest identification.

She said that with DNA technology advancing, it always makes improvements in the retesting of the victims’ remains.

According to Bolcer, the unidentified remains are currently being stored at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

However, Dna Testing is performed at the chief examiner’s DNA laboratory in Kips Bay. She said once the remains are identified, the victim’s families can then decide whether to leave the remains at the memorial site or make other choices, depending on what they prefer.

Reportedly only a few full bodies were initially recovered from the site of the attacks, with the effects of jet fuel, bacteria and heat making their job all the more difficult to perform. However, the latest advances in DNA testing, along with a multi-million dollar effort by the city, has connected over 21,900 fragments of human remains to individual victims of the attacks.

The Chief Medical Examiner’s office has since developed a process to pulverize the remains to extract the 9/11 victim’s DNA, which is then compared to a collection of various genetic materials of the victims and their families.
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