Comoros launches crash probe with France, Yemen, US aid (Extra)

Jul 2, 2009, 11:08 GMT

Johannesburg - The Comoros government Thursday formally launched its investigation into the cause of Tuesday's air disaster, in which a Yemenia aircraft plunged into the Indian Ocean with 153 people on board, only one of whom appears to have survived.

As the search for victims and the plane wreckage entered a third day, Idi Nadhoim, Vice-President of the Comoros republic, a tiny state comprised of three islands off south-east Africa, launched 'Operation Enquete (operation investigation).

France, which had 66 nationals on the plane that was carrying mainly Franco-Comorans, is participating in the investigation, along with Yemen and the United States, which supplied the engines of the Airbus 310, Abdillah Mougni, a senior official in the transport ministry, told the German Press Agency dpa.

Comoros has also declared a period of national mourning, he said.

A 12-year-old French girl of Comoran origin, who clung to plane wreckage in the sea for over 12 hours before being rescued Tuesday, is the only known survivor of the crash off Grande Comore island.

Bahiya Bakary, who lost her mother in the crash, arrived home by plane in Paris Thursday morning, where she was reunited with her father and other family members.

The ill-fated Yemenia flight originated in Paris in a different plane and stopped in Marseille and Sana'a Yemen en route to the Comoran capital Moroni.

While questions have been raised over the safety of the plane that carried out the Sana'a-Moroni leg, Yemenia maintains the plane was safe and blames bad weather.

No bodies of victims have been found yet. Several were seen in the water shortly after the crash but strong winds dispersed them over a wide radius.

On Wednesday, a French government minister raised hopes of finding one of the plane's flight recorders after saying a French military plane had located a signal. It emerged later the signal had actually come from a distress beacon.

Family members have begun arriving from France to await news of the search.

Yemenia has offered to send a special plane to fetch family once all the bodies are found.