AHMEDABAD, India (AFP) — The death toll from the fiery crash of a London-bound passenger jet in an Indian city climbed to 279 on Saturday as officials sought to match the DNA of victims with their grieving relatives.

The Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner issued a mayday call shortly before it crashed around lunchtime on Thursday, bursting into a fireball as it hit residential buildings.

A police source said on Saturday that 279 bodies had been found at the crash site in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, making it one of the worst plane disasters of the 21st century.

“Nobody can fill the void left by loss,” said Imtiyaz Ali, whose younger brother boarded the plane.

“I can’t even begin to explain what’s going on inside me,” he told AFP.

There was just one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the jet when it crashed, leaving the tailpiece of the aircraft jutting out of a hostel for medical staff.

Emergency services kept up their recovery efforts on Saturday, extracting a badly burnt body from the tailpiece before cranes were used to remove the wreckage.

At least 38 people were killed on the ground.

“I saw my child for the first time in two years, it was a great time,” said Anil Patel, whose son and daughter-in-law had surprised him with a visit before boarding the Air India flight.

“And now, there is nothing,” he said, breaking down in tears. “Whatever the gods wanted has happened.”

– Search for black box –
Distraught relatives of passengers have been providing DNA samples in Ahmedabad, with some having to fly to India to help with the process.

The first body of a passenger to be handed over to relatives was placed in a white coffin on Saturday before being transported in an ambulance with a police escort, footage from the state government showed.

Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members.

The official casualty number will not be finalised until the slow process of DNA identification is completed.

Those killed ranged from a top politician to a teenage tea seller.

The lone survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, said even he could not explain how he survived.

“Initially, I too thought that I was about to die, but then I opened my eyes and realised that I was still alive,” Ramesh, a British citizen, told national broadcaster DD News from his hospital bed.

Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said on Friday that a flight data recorder, or black box, had been recovered, saying it would “significantly aid” investigations.

Forensic teams are still looking for the second black box as they probe why the plane lost height and crashed straight after takeoff.

The aviation minister said on Saturday that authorities “felt the need to do an extended surveillance of the Boeing 787 planes”, with eight out of Air India’s 34 Dreamliners inspected so far.

Officials will take “whatever necessary steps are needed” to determine the cause of the disaster as soon as possible, he said.

The United States (US) planemaker said it was in touch with Air India and stood “ready to support them” over the incident. A source close to the case said it was the first 787 Dreamliner crash.