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.

The London-bound Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel in a residential area of Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff Thursday, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground. One passenger survived.

AHMEDABAD (Reuters) -Lawrence Christian had flown to India to bury his father. A fortnight later, his family is now waiting to bury him. Christian, 30, worked in Britain and was one of the passengers on the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London that crashed last week with 242 people on board, seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad.