Hundreds gathered in Mumbai today to honour Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the Air India pilot who has been hailed as a hero for limiting casualties on the ground during last week’s crash.Captain Sabharwal issued a mayday call to air traffic controllers moments after takeoff and residents on the ground have credited him with avoiding a large residential building that was directly on the flight path.

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

The state government said samples of 250 victims, including persons on board as well as those killed on the ground, had been collected for identification.

Sabharwal was the pilot in command of the ill-fated Ahmedabad-London Gatwick Air India plane that crashed last week, killing 241 out of 242 people on board, and 29 on the ground.

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.

Medical students who survived when an Air India plane crashed into their hostel say their first reaction was to help treat the injured

Three days after the crash, only 35 bodies had been handed over to relatives from an overall official death toll of 270.

Filmmaker Mahesh Kalawadia has been missing since the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12th. He was last seen near the crash site, and his phone was switched off shortly after the plane took off.