Teen survivor of Comoros crash bruised, conscious

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 5:16 AM Posted by Beijing News


MORONI, Comoros – A bruised teenage girl clung to the wreckage of a Yemeni plane for more than 13 hours before rescuers found her floating in the Indian Ocean, a French official said Wednesday.

There was no word on any other survivors, but French officials said one of the plane's black boxes had been found.

The Yemenia Airbus 310 jet carrying 153 people to island nation of Comoros crashed into the sea early Tuesday as it attempted to land in the dark amid howling winds.

An Associated Press reporter saw 14-year-old Bahia Bakari in a Comoros hospital Wednesday as she was visited by government officials. She was conscious with bruises on her face and a gauze bandage on her elbow.

"It is a true miracle. She is a courageous young girl," Alain Joyandet, France's minister for international cooperation, said at the hospital. "She held onto a piece of the plane from 1:30 a.m to 3:00 p.m. She has lost her mother. Her father arrives tomorrow."

The girl's father told French radio that his daughter was "fragile" and could "barely swim" but managed to hang on.

Kassim Bakari said he spoke with his oldest daughter by phone after Tuesday's crash. Bahia had left Paris on Monday night with her mother to see family in the Comoros.

He said she was ejected and found herself beside the plane.

"She couldn't feel anything, and found herself in the water. She heard people speaking around her but she couldn't see anyone in the darkness," Bakari said on France's RTL radio. "She's a very timid girl, I never thought she would escape like that."

Said Mohammed, a nurse at El Mararouf hospital in the Comoros capital of Moroni, said the girl was doing well and doctors would release more on her condition later Wednesday.

Sgt. Said Abdilai told Europe 1 radio that Bahia was too weak to grasp the life ring rescuers threw to her, so he jumped into the sea to get her. He said rescuers gave the trembling girl warm water with sugar.

The crash a few miles kilometers off this island nation came two years after aviation officials reported equipment faults with the plane, an aging Airbus 310 flying the last leg of a Yemenia airlines flight from Paris and Marseille to the Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes.

Most of the passengers were from the Comoros, a former French colony. Sixty-six on board were French nationals.

Turbulence was believed to be a factor in the crash, Yemen's embassy in Washington said.

Gen. Bruno de Bourdoncle de Saint-Salvy, the senior commander for French forces in the southern Indian Ocean, said the Airbus 310 crashed in deep waters about nine miles 14.4 kilometers north of the Comoran coast and 21 miles 34 kilometers from the Moroni airport.

A French military cargo plane flew Wednesday over a zone 50 miles 80 kilometers north of Grand Comoros Island, while two inflatable dinghies sent by French forces on La Reunion island combed waters closer to the coast.

"The search is continuing," Joyandet said. "No other survivors have been found for the moment."

Associated Press writers Emmanuel Georges-Picot contributed to this report from Paris and Yoann Guilloux from Saint-Denis de la Reunion.





A boy jumps while playing football in a field near Pretoria. AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba

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