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PARIS: A 12-year-old girl who survived a Yemeni airliner crash by clinging to wreckage in the Indian Ocean flew back to Paris on Thursday for an emotional reunion with her father.
The only known survivor among the 153 people on the Yemenia Airbus A310 jet, which crashed off the Comoro Islands on Tuesday, Bahia Bakari was repatriated on a French government plane.
In the Comoros, French and American divers on Thursday joined the hunt for wreckage and bodies, with the French military saying a rescue beacon had been detected. The plane is believed to have sunk more than 300 metres (1,000 feet) however.
Bakari arrived at Paris' Le Bourget airport along with France's Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet, where she was embraced by her father and relatives.
"She is doing well," her father Kassim Bakari – who lost his partner in the crash – told reporters at the airport, saying he was "very, very grateful" to be reunited with his daughter.
Suffering from exhaustion, with a fractured collarbone and burns to her knee, but no life-threatening injuries, Bahia was taken by ambulance straight to a Paris hospital.
Joyandet described the young girl as "astonishingly composed, very gentle, very sweet", adding: "She really needs a few days rest. She will be recovering with her family. She just learned that she has lost her mother."
Kassim Bakari said he was "torn between relief and sadness", offering out his "condolences to all the victims of the crash", in which 66 French nationals and many more French-based Comorans are feared dead.
Barely able to swim, Bahia was ejected into the ocean in pitch darkness when the Airbus plunged into the sea after attempting to land at Moroni airport.
Joyandet told reporters the child had explained that "some instructions were given, she felt like a jolt of electricity, then a loud noise and she found herself in the water."
Bakari's father described his daughter's ordeal on French radio on Wednesday, saying that – according to her account – some others survived the initial impact in the rough sea.
"She could hear people talking, but in the middle of the night, she couldn't see a thing. She managed to hold onto a piece of something," he said.
When rescuers emerged in the light of day, she was too weak to react, according to a rescuer, who said he jumped in the water to get her.
Yemenia Airlines, under attack from angry relatives who suspect the plane's condition caused the crash, has offered an initial payment of 20,000 euros (28,000 dollars) to the family of each victim, without saying when.
There is mounting anger over the condition of the 19-year-old jet, which had been banned from French airspace because of safety doubts. Airbus stopped building the long-haul plane in 2007.
Passengers on the Yemenia flight left Paris on Monday for Marseille and Sanaa aboard a modern Airbus A330 before switching to the older A310 jet to continue to Djibouti and Moroni.
Comoros Vice President Idi Nadhoim criticised France, saying Paris should have alerted them that the twin-engine was unsafe. But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said it was well-known in the Comoran community that the plane was banned by France.
French Comorans – including the 80,000-strong community in Marseille, which is home to more Comorans than the Indian Ocean state's capital – said the tragedy was waiting to happen.
Comorans staged a protest on Wednesday at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to highlight what they call poor safety on Yemenia planes, while in Marseille protestors shut down two travel agents selling Yemenia tickets.
Airbus, still reeling from the crash of an Air France A330 into the Atlantic on June 1 with 228 people on board, has sent investigators to the Comoros, while a judicial investigation was announced by French prosecutors.
- AFP/so
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