Emergency numbers:

Paris airport number for families of passengers: +33.1.48.64.59.59
Yemenia Airways emergency number: +967.1.250.833

AFP - A French minister backtracked Wednesday on a claim that patrols had located a black box of the Yemenia airliner that crashed off the Comoros, saying they picked up signals from distress beacons.

Yemeni airline's safety standards questioned 'I wish France had told us' about plane ban, says Comoros minister

"There may have been some confusion," he told reporters in Moroni, after meeting the 13-year-old girl who was rescued Tuesday from the Indian Ocean, so far the only survivor among the flight's 153 passengers and crew.

"The frequency on which the plane received the distress signal rules out the possibility that it could be the beacon attached to the black box," he added.

Dad, the airplane just dived down. Everything was black. Kassim Bakari, father of sole survivor of crashed Yemenia plane

A spokeswoman for Joyandet told AFP by phone earlier that "the black box's signal" was picked up by an aerial patrol on Tuesday not far from the archipelago's coast.

Two French navy ships and the Transall plane were dispatched to the crash zone to help in the rescue effort. Sixty-six French nationals, and many Comoran residents in France, were among the 142 passengers and 11 crew of Flight 626.

Flight plan of Yemeni Airbus A310-300 that crashed off the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros on June 30 at around 1am Paris time

The A310 had aborted a landing and was making a second attempt when it crashed, officials said. The 19-year-old jet had been banned from France's airspace because of doubts about its safety.

It is the second time in less than a month that an Airbus has crashed into the ocean.