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Yemen plane crashes in ocean, child found alive

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-30 19:12

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

In Paris, a crisis cell was set up at Charles de Gaulle airport. Most of the passengers on board were from the French city of Marseille, which has a large Comoros community.

Relatives and friends of passengers aboard the Airbus flight A310-300 from Yemen arrive at a crisis center at Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris, June 30, 2009. [Agencies]

Another crisis cell has been established in Marseille, according to Stephane Salord, the consul general of the Comoros in the Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur region of France.

Related readings:  Yemen official: Comoros-bound plane crashes  Yemen official: Most passengers returning home from Paris  Yemeni plane crashes in sea off Comoros, bodies found  Yemeni plane crashes in sea off Comoros, 153 on board

"There is considerable dismay," Salord said. "These are families that, each year on the eve of summer, leave Marseille and the region to rejoin their families in the Comoros and spend their holidays."

In France, this week is the start of annual summer school vacations.

An Airbus statement said the plane that crashed went into service 19 years ago, in 1990, and had accumulated 51,900 flight hours. It has been operated by Yemenia (Yemen Airways) since 1999.

Airbus identifies the plane's serial number as 535, and said it was sending a team of specialists to the Comoros.

The A310-300 is a twin-engine widebody jet that can seat up to 220 passengers. There are 214 A310s in service worldwide with 41 operators.

France's transport minister Dominique Bussereau said French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" during a 2007 inspection of the plane. He told France's i-Tele television that the Airbus A310 was inspected by France's civil aviation agency DGAC and "they noticed a certain number of faults."

On May 31, an Airbus A330 operated by Air France ran into thunderstorms after leaving Brazil and crashed into the Atlantic. Fifty-one bodies were recovered from that flight, which was carrying 228 people.

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