05 July 2009 - 17H01

Yemenia jet's black boxes 'will take days to recover'

Search teams will take several days to locate and recover the black boxes of the Yemenia airliner that crashed off the Comoros with 153 people on board, a French naval officer told AFP Sunday.

"We expect to pinpoint the location of the black boxes in the coming days," Lieutenant Commander Christophe Levivier said. "So the recovery of the black boxes will only be possible after several days."

France was sending a boat, the Beautemps-Beaupres, currently deployed off the Horn of Africa, to help with the search, Levivier said, adding that it was expected to arrive in the crash zone between July 12 and 17.

Earlier Sunday, Abdou Said Madi, director of the Comoran civil aviation agency, said a signal from the boxes had been detected about 10 to 12 kilometres (six to eight miles) from Mitsamiouli beach, north of the capital Moroni.

The Yemenia Airways Airbus A310 went down Tuesday in the Indian Ocean as it was approaching for landing on the Comoros Islands. A 12-year-old girl was the only survivor of the crash.

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