Investigators probing the deadly crash of an Air India Boeing 787 have recovered the aircraft’s flight recorders, a key step in determining the cause of a tragedy that killed more than 260 people.

As investigators in India comb through both the wreckage and data left behind by the fatal Boeing 787 crash on Thursday, aviation experts are piecing together their own theories.

Only the passenger in seat 11A on Air India Flight 171 lived to tell the tale, a survival nothing short of a miracle.