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Latest update: 02/07/2009
- Comoros - Comoros crash - France - plane crash - Yemen
Young survivor of Yemenia plane crash arrives in Paris
A day after she was plucked from the sea, 12-year-old Bahia Bakari, the only known survivor of the doomed Yemenia Airlines plane that crashed off the Comoros Islands, arrived in Paris to join her father after surviving for 10 hours in the ocean.
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Emergency numbers:
Paris airport number for families of passengers: +33.1.48.64.59.59
Yemenia Airways emergency number: +967.1.250.833
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Dad, the airplane just dived down. Everything was black. |
Rescuers have failed to find any of the remaining 152 passengers and crew since the Yemenia Airbus A310 crashed in rough weather in the early hours of Tuesday.
American and French military aircraft continued to scour the crash site on Thursday to locate the wreckage, thought to be in waters up to 500 metres (1,600 ft) deep.
Local doctors, who marvelled at Bakari's escape with little more than cuts, bruises and a fractured collar bone, said she was discharged on her father's request.
"It was on the demand of her father in France. The girl was regaining her spirit and was in a satisfactory physical state," said Dr Jean Youssef, lead doctor at the disaster unit on Grand Comore.
Youssef said Moroni's El Marouf hospital lacked the facilities needed to properly scan the teenager's body for any internal damage.
Bakari returned to France on a French government jet with French Cooperation Secretary Alain Joyandet.
Reporters said Bakari, who is still unaware that her mother died in the crash, was groggy and did not say much at the airport.
Local rescuers suspect many of the dead remained trapped inside the doomed plane and say the search effort should focus on finding the wreck.
"Everything leads us to believe that the bodies of the victims remain inside. In two days we haven't found a body, any large pieces of debris or suitcases floating on the water," disaster centre member Ibrahim Abdourazak told Reuters.
The cause of the crash is still unknown, officials say.
The French defence ministry denied on Wednesday reports by the state-run airline that the flight recorder -- the so called black-box -- had been located.
The aircraft, which was on the final leg of a trip from Paris and Marseille, was the second Airbus to crash into the sea in a month.
The airline said there were 75 Comoran passengers on board, along with 65 French nationals, one Palestinian and one Canadian. The crew comprised of six Yemenis, two Moroccans, one Indonesian, one Ethiopian and a Filipina.
