One of the black box flight recorders from the Yemeni jet, which crashed off the Comoros, has been located and efforts to retrieve it will begin on Wednesday, the French government said.
"The black box's signal was located yesterday (Tuesday) at 4:30 pm local time (1230 GMT) by an aerial patrol, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Grande Comore," said Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet, quoted by a spokeswoman.
A French boat was to arrive on site later on Wednesday to start operations to recover the flight recorder, he added.
Meanwhile, teenager Bahia Bakari was recovered in hospital on Wednesday a day after miraculously surviving the Yemeni jet crash off the Comoros feared to have killed 152 other people.
Amid mounting anger over the condition of the Yemenia airline jet that crashed early Tuesday, a desperate hunt for other survivors resumed and the French government said one black box flight recorder from the A310 had been detected.
Thirteen-year-old Bakari, who lives in Marseille, France, escaped without serious injuries from the crash as the jet attempted to land at Moroni airport at the end of a four stage flight from France.
French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet met the girl in hospital on Wednesday and heard how she was pulled out of the sea.
One rescuer told France's Europe 1 radio that the girl was seen swimming in choppy waters in the middle of bodies and plane debris in the dark about two hours after the crash.
"We tried to throw a life buoy. She could not grab it. I had to jump in the water to get her," the rescuer said.
"She was shaking. We put four covers on her. We gave her hot, sugary water. We simply asked her name, village."
Her father Kassim Bakari told French radio the girl had suffered some burns when she was thrown from the plane. She hardly knew how to swim, he told RTL radio, but clung to some debris and heard the voices of the rescuers.
The girl's mother was also among the 141 other passengers and 11 on Flight IY 626 who are feared dead.
"She is conscious, she is speaking but we are not asking her too many question so as not to tire her," said Ada Mansour, the doctor who treated the girl at the hospital, where she was in the intensive care unit.
I agree with Mr. Nityanandam. In fact, I came to know about the crash very late whereas in the case of AF, I had been told by one of my colleague the same day as media had covered it well. I urge the media persons from all over the world to pl. do not discriminate at least in these kinds of cases and they should be covered and reported with equal attention as life of a person living in a developed country is equally precious as the life of a perrson living in developed country
Posted by K.Nityanandam on Jul 01, 2009
The world is racist in every respect.Why is it that the crash of Yemeni aircraft with the death of 150 people does not attract the same media attention or hype which an Air France flight crash attracts.There were nearly 150 people who died in the aircrash and they were also precious lives like the Air france crash victims.France is a developed country where as Yemen is a developing country.Mind you both were Air bus aircrafts but no one talks about the aircraft company
