Investigators have now recovered the cockpit voice recorder from last week’s devastating Air India crash and will analyse the pilots’ final words to help determine what caused the disaster that killed more than 270 people.

Since the Tata takeover, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation has repeatedly fined Air India over safety and other regulatory violations, including an Rs8mn ($95,000) penalty last year for exceeding flight duty time limits. At home, it is competing in a near-duopoly with IndiGo, which has been boosting its international long-haul routes.

A veteran commercial airline pilot said he may have found a “total game-changer” in what led to the doomed Air India Boeing 787 to crash after analyzing new video.

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.

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LONDON and DELHI -- An Air India airliner carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members en route to the United Kingdom crashed into a building shortly after takeoff on Thursday, leaving 246 dead and at least one surviving passenger, local officials and the airline said.