152 die as Yemeni jet crashes into ocean

DOUBTS over the safety of a Yemeni jetliner were at the forefront yesterday after an Airbus 310-300 carrying 153 people crashed into the Indian Ocean as it came in for a landing during howling winds on the island nation of Comoros.

There was only one survivor, a 14-year-old girl who was found floating 16km out to sea from the Comoros islands off Africa’s east coast where the Yemeni Airbus was trying to land.

The girl named Bahia was taken to hospital but was making a good recovery, a rescue centre spokesman said.

The crash came two years after aviation officials reported faults with the plane, an Airbus 310 flying the last leg of a journey from Paris and Marseille to Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes.

Most of the passengers were from Comoros – a former French colony – on the last leg of a journey from France, where there is a large expat population from the former colony.

Sixty-six on board were French nationals.

Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader said the flight data recorder had not been found and it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash. But, he said, the wind was 61kph as the plane was landing in the middle of the night.

“The weather was very bad,” he said, adding the windy conditions were hampering rescue efforts.

The Yemeni plane was the second Airbus to crash into the sea this month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, killing all 228 people on board, as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

The Comoros is an archipelago of three main islands situated 2,900km south of Yemen, between Africa’s south-eastern coast and the island of Madagascar.

Many of the dead were French and the EU said it was considering blacklisting the airline Yemeni Air which has been criticised for its safety procedures.

A crisis centre was set up at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Many passengers were from the French city of Marseille, home to about 80,000 immigrantComorans, more even than Comoros’ capital of Moroni.

Some French Comorans insisted that their earlier warnings about the airline’s safety were not heeded by authorities.

Stephane Salord, the Comoros’ honorary consul in Marseille, called Yemenia’s aircraft “flying cattle trucks”.

“This A310 is a plane that has posed problems for a long time, it is absolutely inadmissible that this airline Yemenia played with the lives of its passengers this way,” he said.

“It is an absolute disgrace that we tolerate this kind of thing and I think the company’s responsibility is considerable.”

Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said French aviation inspectors found a “number of faults” during a 2007 inspection of the plane that crashed.

“Some people stand the whole way to Moroni,” said Mohamed Ali, a Comoran who went to Yemenia’s headquarters in Paris to try to get more information.

Thoue Djoumbe, a 28-year-old woman who lives in the French town of Fontainebleau, said she and others had complained about the airline for years.

“It’s a lottery when you travel to Comoros,” said Djoumbe. “We’ve organised boycotts, we’ve told the Comoran community not to fly on Yemenia Airways because they make a lot of money off of us and meanwhile the conditions on the planes are disastrous.”

Christophe Prazuck, French military spokesman, said a patrol boat and reconnaissance ship were being sent to the crash site as well a military transport plane. The French were sending divers as well as medical personnel, he said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy “expressed his deep emotion” about the crash and asked the French military to help in the rescue operation, particularly from the French islands of Mayotte and Reunion.

Yemenia airline officials say the crew was made up of six Yemenis, including the pilot, two Moroccans, one Indonesian, one Ethiopian and one Filipino.