MORONI, (Reuters) – An Airbus A310-300 from Yemen with 153 people on board, including 66 French nationals, crashed into the sea off the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros as it approached in bad weather early yesterday, officials said.
A 14-year-old girl was found alive in the sea, Comoros Communications Minister Abdourahim Said Bakar said. Earlier reports had said the rescued child was five.
The Paris airports authority said 66 French nationals were aboard the plane, which was flying the final leg of a trip from Paris and Marseille to Comoros via Yemen.
A Yemeni aviation official said there were also nationals from Canada, Comoros, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, the Philippines and Yemen on the plane.
It is the second Airbus to plunge into the sea this month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing 228 people on board on June 1. A preliminary report on that crash is due on Thursday.
The Paris-Marseille-Yemen leg of the Yemenia flight was flown by an Airbus A330. In Sanaa, those passengers who were flying on to the Comoros changed onto a second Yemenia plane, the A310 that crashed.
French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said faults had been detected during inspections in France in 2007 on the Yemenia A310, and that it had not flown to France since.
“The A310 in question was inspected in 2007 by the DGAC (French transport authorities) and they noticed a certain number of faults,” he told the I-tele television channel.
“The company was not on the black list but was subject to stricter checks on our part, and was due to be interviewed shortly by the European Union’s safety committee.”
“The question we are asking … is whether you can collect people in a normal way on French territory and then put them in a plane that does not ensure their security. We do not want this to happen again,” he said.
Yemen’s transport minister said the plane was thoroughly checked in May under Airbus supervision.
“It was a comprehensive inspection carried out in Yemen … with experts from Airbus,” Khaled Ibrahim al-Wazeer told Reuters from Sanaa. “It was in line with international standards.”