Hopes dwindle for more Comoros air crash survivors

Jul 1, 2009, 7:10 GMT

Johannesburg - Hopes dwindled Wednesday for finding any more survivors of the Yemenia Air plane crash off the Comoros Islands, as rescue teams continued to scour the seas for more wreckage.

A 14-year old girl is the only known survivor so far of the 153 people on the Airbus A310 from Sana'a, Yemen, which crashed at sea after missing its first attempt at landing in the Comoran capital, Moroni, in bad weather.

After suspending search efforts overnight, there was now 'practically no chance' of finding more survivors, Comoros Transport Ministry Secretary-General Abdillah Mougni told the German Press Agency dpa.

Comoran President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi cut short his visit to an African Union summit in Libya and was returning to the archipelago to oversee the rescue operation, the interior ministry said in a statement.

The government expressed the 'pain and solidarity of all Comorans towards the victims and their families.'

Most of the 142 passengers were Comorans living in France, the former colonial power, where the flight originated in Paris in a newer Airbus A330 aircraft.

France has said it had banned the older Yemenia Airbus from its airspace after detecting faults in the plane two years ago.

French authorities say 66 passengers were French nationals - a figure that could include Comorans with double nationality.

A French rescuer told French radio the girl had been seen swimming among dead bodies and debris in the choppy waters, more than two hours after the plane vanished from radar screens.

He also told how he had to jump in the water to pull her to safety in a boat because she was too weak to grab a buoy. She was being treated in hospital for exhaustion and cold.

The area where the plane went down has been localized. So far only five bodies have been recovered from the sea by Comoran and French divers.

The search had to be suspended overnight because of rough seas.

Mougni said the US army was due to come to the aid of Comoran authorities and the French military on Wednesday with extra helicopters and divers. France, which already sent help on a military transport plane, is also sending two navy vessels to bolster the search.

The crash is the second Airbus disaster in less than a month. An Airbus A330 travelling from Brazil to France plunged into the Atlantic on June 1 with 229 people on board.

Yemeni investigators are working with Comoran investigators in probing the cause of the crash. Yemen has rejected allegations that the aircraft was unsafe and is blaming the weather.