A Yemenia Airways worker looks at a notice of an announcement of Flight IY626 at San’a International Airport in Comoros on Monday. (Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)A bruised teenage girl believed to be the lone survivor of a Yemeni plane crash clung to the aircraft debris for more than 13 hours before she was rescued in the Indian Ocean, a French official said Wednesday.
There appear to be no other survivors, but one of the plane's black boxes had been found, French officials said.
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 co-operation, said at the hospital. "She held onto a piece of the plane from 1:30 a.m to 3 p.m. She has lost her mother. Her father arrives tomorrow."
Ejected from plane
'"Papa, we saw the plane going down in the water. I was in the water, I could hear people talking, but I couldn't see anyone. I was in the dark, I couldn't see a thing, on top of that Daddy, I can't swim well and I held onto something, but I don't really know what." вЂ"Bahia Bakari in telephone conversation with her father
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.
Equipment faults reported
The crash a few kilometres 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, the Yemen Embassy in Washington said.
The tragedy prompted an outcry in Comoros, where residents have long complained of a lack of seatbelts on Yemenia flights and planes so overcrowded that passengers had to stand in the aisles.
