Air India flight AI171, a Boeing 787-8 carrying 242 people, crashed after taking off from Ahmedabad on its way to London.

More than 290 people are feared to have died after a plane bound for London crashed into a residential area shortly after taking off from an airport in India’s western city of Ahmedabad.

There have been cases of a very small number of survivors in very serious accidents, but it is "very rare" for there to be only one, a professor told Newsweek.