Yemen Airline Crash at Comoros Islands | 06/30/2009 8:20 am

Yemen Airline Crashes Near Comoros Islands; 5-Year-Old Found Alive

Most of the 153 passengers and crew were heading home from France when plane plunged into Indian Ocean; rescue efforts continue.

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

In what some are calling a small miracle amid another horrible airline tragedy, a five-year-old child was found alive after a Yemeni airliner crashed into the Indian Ocean early this morning.

The bodies of three other people were also recovered; 142 passengers — including three babies — and 11 crew members were aboard the Yemenia Airlines flight. Officials from Yemenia Air say the plane went down early Tuesday morning while flying from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa to Moroni on the main island of Grand Comore. The flight originated in France, with Yemen as a stop on its way to the island nation, located about 300 kilometers northwest of Madagascar. While the cause of the crash is unknown, some reports say the plane hit strong winds as it approached the Comoros.

The Airbus SAS A310 plane was 15 minutes from touching down in the archipelago’s capital, Moroni, when it plunged into the ocean, a Yemenia official, Taha al-Ashwal, told Bloomberg. French officials say their inspectors found faults with a Yemenia A310 plane during a 2007 inspection, and the airline had been under strict surveillance since then. France is helping in today’s rescue mission.

The Yemenia incident comes just weeks after the horrific crash of AirFrance Flight 447, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean en route to Paris from Brazil, killing all 238 people aboard.

Our hearts and thoughts are with the friends and family of those aboard the Yemenia flight.

8 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

The 5-year-old is a miracle. I hope he/she is not seriously injured.

By DeBúrca obj on 06/30/2009 8:46 am

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That 5 year old is truly a miracle and must be destined for a great future for our World.

By C Hardy on 06/30/2009 8:53 am

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Poor little thing. I hope the 5 year old lives a long healthy life. I also hope the child has a caring extended family:)

By S G on 06/30/2009 9:39 am

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This is great news! Finally something POSITIVE in the news broadcasts!

By Sherry Dale on 06/30/2009 10:07 am

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Oh Lordy — another Airbus incident! IMO they should ground all of the Airbus Fleet until they find out what problem they are encountering. This is the fifth or sixth crash! Why do they continue to fly this airplane until they have checked it out. And why do the Airline companies continue to buy and fly this aircraft. Soon there will be so many law suits they will have to go out of business.

I too hope this five year old has a loving extended family.

By Lady Gator on 06/30/2009 10:38 am

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Lady: …they should ground all of the Airbus Fleet until they find out what problem they are encountering.

I agree 100%. Back to back accidents, similar in nature… hmm. The French should take a long look at this one. Passengers should refuse to board these planes that cannot withstand weather until more is found out.

By Marjorie C. on 06/30/2009 12:18 pm

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Just last night I was some old tapes, and ran across a show called “Strange Luck”. Part of the premise of the story was that, as a young boy, the main character was the sole survivor of a plane crash…

This was one lucky girl, though I doubt she feels that way just now - now they are saying the survivor is a 14 year old girl.

In Paris, Mr Bussereau told legislators that the Yemenia Airbus 310 which crashed was not permitted to fly into France, and raised concerns about the transfer of passengers from a plane classed as safe to one which crashed into the ocean.

“A few years ago, we banned this plane from national territory because we believed it presented a certain number of irregularities in its technical equipment,” Mr Bussereau told parliament.

…

However, a spokesman for the airline said poor weather was more likely to have been a factor in the crash than the condition of the plane.

Yemeni Transport Minister Khaled Ibrahim al-Wazeer also told Reuters that the plane had recently undergone a thorough inspection overseen by Airbus and conformed to international standards.

The crash prompted the European Union to highlight its own concerns about Yemenia’s safety record, proposing a world blacklist of those carriers deemed unsafe.

The EU already has its own list, and its transport commissioner, Antonio Tajani, said such a list would be a “safety guarantee for all”.

Another EU official told Reuters news agency there were concerns about the airline’s “incomplete reporting procedure and incomplete follow-up” following 2007 tests on the aircraft that crashed, but that its record was improving.

Airbus has had a rough month, but this crash seems to be a result of how this particular plane was maintained.

France ‘banned Yemen crash plane’

By Zera Lee on 06/30/2009 12:32 pm

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I’m happy to hear that that poor girl survived, and I hope that all of her family was not on that plane! It will be tough enough to cope with losing some, but I can’t imagine surviving something like that and losing your entire family at the same time.

By Rachel F on 06/30/2009 1:13 pm