The death toll from Air India’s horrific plane crash rose to 270 Saturday, as officials revealed the pilot’s chilling distress call sent just before the aircraft plunged into the ground. 

“Mayday, mayday,” Capt. Sumeet Sabharwal said in his final radio communications with air traffic control, less than a minute after the London-bound flight took off from Ahmedabad Airport at 1:39 p.m. Thursday. 

When air traffic controllers tried to return communication, “there was no response,” Samir Kumar Sinha, a secretary for India’s aviation ministry, said during a press briefing Saturday. 

Sinha said the 12-year-old Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which had reached a height of 650 feet in the air, went down within just seconds of the mayday call, The Guardian reported. 

It hit the ground in Meghani Nagar – located just over a mile away from the airport – and struck a medical college hostel in Gujarat State. 

The crash killed 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground, according to officials, who said recovery teams found at least 25 more bodies in the debris on Friday. 

Only one man, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, survived the horrifying ordeal — one of India’s worst aviation disasters in its history. 

All of the bodies have been taken to the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, where the survivor also remains in treatment for his injuries, Dr. Dhaval Gameti told the Associated Press.

“He is doing very well and will be ready to be discharged anytime soon,” Gameti told the outlet Saturday. 

Relatives of the crash victims have shown up in full force, donating hundreds of DNA samples for the hospital to use to help identify their loved ones. Most bodies found so far have been charred or mutilated, making them unrecognizable. 

Some family members expressed frustration Saturday that it was taking too long to ID their loved ones. Authorities tried to reassure them that, although it normally takes up to 72 hours to complete DNA matching, they planned to expedite the process.

“Where are my children? Did you recover them?” asked Rafiq Abdullah, whose nephew, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren were on board the tragic flight.

“Government is not answering these questions,” Abdullah fumed. 

Another man repeatedly asked hospital personnel when his relative’s body would be given over to the family for the last rites.

“Give us the body,” he insisted. 

Authorities have already inspected eight of Air India’s entire fleet of 34 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft in the wake of the crash, Indian Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu told reporters Saturday, adding that the remaining aircraft will be examined with “immediate urgency.” 

On Friday, investigators recovered the plane’s digital flight data recorder, or black box, from a rooftop near the crash site. The device is expected to reveal information about the plane’s engine and control settings, said Paul Fromme, a member of the U.K.-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 

Investigators should be able to answer questions about what caused the crash as soon as next week, as long as the black box is in good shape, said aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti.

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said it had begun working “full force” to extract the data, while the country’s government said it had formed a multi-disciplinary committee to examine the causes of the crash, on top of a formal investigation. 

Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft, but Thursday’s Air India crash marked the first deadly crash among 787 Dreamliner planes in 16 years of operation, according to experts. There are currently 1,200 of them worldwide. 

With Wires.