CHAPTER 1286: CHAPTER 1213 TALENT

In front of Jiang Yuan is an intact male corpse.

But his abdominal cavity is empty, appearing limp, and his cranial cavity is also vacant, with the brain matter having already been flung out during the crash.

The corpse itself is also limp, spread out on the autopsy table, flowing outward, while the severely burned lower body remains stiffly rigid, like a half-thick human skin rug.

His bones had already broken during the crash, shattering into pieces, together with the muscles that also lost their support, softly encased within remaining skin tissues and fused fats, forming a true skin sack.

Thus, before the moment of the crash, this pilot was actually already dead. The pre-crash death spiral or uncontrolled dive, was not merely a nightmare difficult to recover from; the centrifugal force generated by the aircraft’s body exceeded human body endurance, and the pilot’s body was no exception.

And this deceased today, his physical condition when alive, possibly didn’t meet the standards for a pilot. The requirements for a pilot’s license for small aircraft aren’t high; passing a normal medical examination and flying for dozens of hours can allow one to fly solo. The requirements for carrying passengers are only slightly higher, but they focus on flight time rather than physical fitness.

"Have you performed an autopsy on crash victims before?" Zeng Lianrong stepped closer and asked quietly.

Actually, he knew the answer; crash cases are rare domestically, and there are only a handful of forensic doctors involved in related autopsies.

Zeng Lianrong, a forensic doctor from the Beijing Bureau, has collaborated with Jiang Yuan many times and highly recognizes his forensic skills, yet some experiences are simply lacking, and Zeng Lianrong also worried about Jiang Yuan making a mistake.

In this kind of case, involving foreign parties yet needing to be conducted independently, if Jiang Yuan made an error, no one would cover for him.

Jiang Yuan smiled slightly; his LV4 forensic pathology was also at an LV4 level when facing crash victims; this level of experience, in today’s domestic field... it should be said, in today’s international field, is probably unparalleled. Looking back in history, for a forensic doctor to reach this technical level, it would be tracing back to the World War II era. At the very least, it would involve participating in more than three Middle Eastern wars or something similar.

"I haven’t, but that’s not a problem." Jiang Yuan gave a definite answer, with no hint of ambiguity.

At this moment, humility would only create more problems.

Zeng Lianrong could only smack his lips: "That confidence of yours... plus your talent, alright then. By the way, if we’re to start, should we call in the Yibenli forensic doctor?"

"Call them in." Jiang Yuan wasn’t in a hurry to move the body, turning instead to ask: "We’ve taken photos before, right? I reviewed the scene records and photos of personal items on the way here, is there anything updated?"

The internally opened information from the crash victim doesn’t necessarily offer more than what the external scene can provide.

Zeng Lianrong looked towards the junior forensic doctor Zhan Kan next to him.

Zhan Kan, a forensic doctor from the Jing Bureau Zhengguang Branch, was the first to arrive on the scene after the accident alarm. He hurriedly said: "The scene is still under survey, mainly engineering investigation, most of the wreckage has been collected, the black box has been found, there is no voice data; the pilot should have panicked or fainted at the time. Other flight data is still unknown."

"Don’t make reckless analyses." Zeng Lianrong glared at Zhan Kan: "How do you know the pilot passed out? Can you make such a judgment without voice data?"

Zhan Kan opened his mouth and quickly shook his head.

"When the foreign forensic doctors come in, be alert." After Zeng Lianrong’s reminder, he had someone make a phone call.

Jiang Yuan coughed twice, saying: "Run the updated photos on the wall."

"Yes." Zhan Kan hurried to the computer and operated it, projecting the newly updated scene survey photos onto the screen on the wall.

"Play it quickly." Jiang Yuan looked up.

In just a few minutes, all the latest photos had been viewed.

Without saying a word, Jiang Yuan turned to check his gloves and the tools beside him.

Soon, Cui Qishan brought in a blonde middle-aged foreigner and a Chinese man in his twenties.

"This is Mr. Alessio, a Yibenli forensic doctor. This is Li Jianfeng, responsible for translating for Mr. Alessio," Cui Qishan gave a brief introduction and turned to the foreigner: "You can only observe, you are not allowed to record, interfere with the autopsy, or touch our personnel, talk to our personnel, touch the corpse, or anything in the room. If you violate any of the above, I will escort you out of the room."

Cui Qishan, looking gentle, but with a stern tone like a teacher, continued: "The translator will translate what our personnel say for you, and you can only whisper to your translator, keeping your voice very low and frequency very low."

The accompanying translator, wearing a mask, looked at the body with furrowed brows before quickly turning away, evidently not a forensic professional.

"Did you really fly from Yibenli to Beijing that fast?" Zeng Lianrong suspiciously glanced at the two.

"It’s also a private jet. They should have flown over right after the crash." Cui Qishan shrugged.

Jiang Yuan then said: "Let’s officially begin. Everyone else, step aside. Yes... There are burn marks on the pilot’s upper body clothing, only a few strips are left, stuck on the body... The legs show signs of high-temperature melting, and the soles... are partially carbonized."

Jiang Yuan spoke while beginning to help Zeng Lianrong undress the pilot.

Then, Jiang Yuan briefly looked at the body, and returned to the head for an examination from top to bottom:

"No obvious burns on the mouth and nose, but the mucous membranes are congested."

"No burns on the auricle, no soot deposition in the ear canal."

"No strangulation marks or sharp weapon injuries."

Jiang Yuan continued down his examination:

"Slight burns on the inside of the forearm, no burns on the palm. Comminuted fracture of the upper limb."

"Burns on the chest, with safety belt marks. Chest clothing is charred."

"Thigh is carbonized, dry, with no fluid seepage."

"Lower leg skin is carbonized, muscle partially exposed."

"Shoe sole completely carbonized, dorsal foot skin dry burn."

"No electric shock marks or injuries on the body. No metal fragment residues. No fuel burn residues."

Zeng Lianrong couldn’t help but glance at Jiang Yuan; he had done a crash autopsy once, but that was when he was younger, assisting an elder expert.

However, despite crash having certain characteristics, essentially, it’s similar to autopsies of other types of transport bodies, or rather, presents significant commonality.

Forensic doctors are always focused on matters concerning the body, and as a seasoned forensic doctor, Zeng Lianrong only needed to listen to the key points reported by Jiang Yuan to know what he was analyzing.

Especially the parts he reported as absent, which inherently implied working through elimination.

Electric shock marks and injuries suggest electrical short circuit, metal fragments suggest explosion and firewall failure, fuel burn residues imply, indicating likely no electrical short circuit, fuel burn residues suggest fuel system leak or arson...

Although absence of these evidences doesn’t prove these reasons don’t exist, in Zeng Lianrong’s view, it showed Jiang Yuan clearly knew what he was doing.

An autopsy is essentially solving a puzzle, forensic doctors continuously prove the cause of death through discovering evidence and finding "no evidence". No forensic doctor truly lists all the have and have not on a body first to then make inferences.

It’s like solving math problems, you are not really deducing the answer from knowns, you need to have a preconceived judgement internally, knowing roughly which formulas and methods apply, then deduce and eliminate, and subsequently apply the appropriate formulas to solve.

Autopsy is similar, you first look at the body, through known information, guess the probable cause of death, then prove the cause based on discovered evidence, or eliminate causes.

For example, absence of strangulation marks and sharp weapon injuries can largely rule out having a 007 sit in the coach seat in the back of the plane, killing the pilot and then parachuting to flee.

Careful observation for electric shock marks and injuries is due to electrical circuit issues being very common faults on light aircraft, also causing crashes.

Similarly, Alessio from Yibenli was also listening attentively to Jiang Yuan. His position didn’t allow him to clearly see every spot on the examination table, but from Jiang Yuan’s methods and examination conclusions, he could judge Jiang Yuan’s basic level, and within a few minutes, Alessio became compliant.

Zeng Lianrong silently acted as Jiang Yuan’s assistant. As long as Jiang Yuan knew what he was doing, Zeng Lianrong didn’t need to worry about his inherent capability.

Jiang Yuan’s external examination flipped back and forth for quite a while before he requested a knife to begin the dissection.

Zhan Kan also stepped forward to assist, another forensic doctor recorded on the side, which was quite a luxurious setup.

The three cavities of the body were already empty, clean after being opened, as if they were entirely removed.

Thus, apex blood, gastric fluid and such were gone, the prepared organ containers were empty, no need for brain slices, even the blood within the body was scarce.

Jiang Yuan therefore took a small amount of remaining blood, then took extra muscle, fat, and skin, then took nail and bone, and said to Zhan Kan beside: "Try to do a comprehensive toxicology test, prepare several samples."

After speaking, Jiang Yuan looked around.

Everyone was quietly silent, including Alessio.