The crash of an Air India Boeing 787 into a residential area in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday killed at least 279 people, according to the latest toll released by authorities on Saturday, making it the world's deadliest air disaster since 2014.
A police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that 279 bodies or body parts had been taken to the city's hospital since the disaster.
An earlier death toll had been 265, including passengers, crew, and residents at the crash site.
The plane crashed on Thursday less than a minute after takeoff at 1:39 p.m. local time (0809 GMT), according to India's Civil Aviation Authority. A distress call was issued shortly before it crashed outside the airport.
After recovering a charred body, rescuers used a crane on Saturday to remove the plane's tail, which had been stuck on the roof of the building since the crash, according to AFP correspondents.
The flight's operator said the plane was carrying 242 passengers and crew. Of the 230 passengers, 169 were Indian, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and one Canadian. The sole survivor was a British citizen of Indian origin.
"It all happened in front of me, and even I couldn't believe how I managed to survive," survivor Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, 40, told DD News.
The death toll released Saturday indicated that 38 people on the ground were killed when the plane crashed into a residential area near Ahmedabad airport, bursting into flames.
"A whirlwind of wind and smoke swept through the room where we were having lunch," Mohit Chavda, a doctor living in the medical staff quarters where the plane hit, told AFP.
"It was impossible to see the person sitting next to us, and we ran away," he added.
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said the official death toll would be announced when DNA tests were completed.
This is the deadliest incident since the downing of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in July 2014 by a missile over Ukraine while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The incident killed 298 people, including 193 Dutch nationals.
A police official told AFP on Friday that one of the plane's two black boxes had been recovered. Investigators continued searching Saturday for the second, the cockpit voice recorder.
Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kingarapu said on Friday that the discovery of the first black box represents "an important step in the investigation into the causes of the accident."
In a press conference Saturday afternoon, he pledged to "do whatever is necessary" to determine the cause of the disaster "as quickly as possible."
An informed source said this was the first crash involving a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, a long-haul aircraft that entered service in 2011.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg canceled his visit to Le Bourget, France, where the world's largest air show opened on Monday.
Air accident investigation agencies in the United Kingdom and the United States announced they would send teams to support Indian investigators.
Experts said it was too early to speculate on the cause of Thursday's crash.
Videos circulating on social media showed the plane taking off, then failing to gain altitude, before crashing to the ground.
Civil aviation authorities on Friday ordered a "precautionary" inspection of Boeing 787 aircraft used by Air India.
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