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Teen Air Crash Survivor Clung to Debris inOcean for 12 Hours
The 14-year-old girl believed to be the only survivor of a Yemenia jetliner crash off Comoros was thrown from the plane amid darkness, she tells her father.
By Jeffrey Fleishman and Devorah LauterJuly 2, 2009
The 14-year-old girl believed to be the lone survivor of a jetliner crashin the Indian Ocean was thrown from the plane and into the waves, where she heard voices but saw no one in the darkness, her fathertold a French radio station Wednesday."She is a very, very shy girl. I never thought she would survive likethat," Kassim Bakari said of his daughter, Bahia, in an interview withFrench RTL radio from his suburban Paris home. "I can't say that it'sa miracle.
I can say that it is
 
God's will.
"When I had her on the phone, I asked her what happened and shesaid, 'Daddy, I don't know what happened, but the plane fell into the water and I found myself in the water . . . surrounded by darkness. Icould not see anyone,' " Bakari said.Bahia, who clung to floating debris for about 12 hours in the cold sea, was in stable condition at the El Maarouf Hospital in Moroni, thecapital of Comoros. The Yemenia airlines Airbus A310 wasapproaching the island nation Tuesday with 153 people aboard whenit went down.Rescue workers and French and U.S. search planes scoured the areanorth of Comoros on Wednesday for more survivors as debris wasscattered for miles across the ocean.The French government announced early Wednesday that searchteams had picked up a signal coming from one of the plane's "black  box" recorders. But it later reversed that assertion, saying theelectronic impulses detected were from the plane's distress signals.The two black boxes -- the cockpit recorder and the flight datarecorder -- are crucial to determining what caused a crash.
 
French army spokesman Christophe Prazuck said the black boxes were probably several hundred yards beneath the ocean surface and"inaccessible to human divers."The Yemeni government said preliminary indications were that bad weather may have caused the airliner to plunge into the sea as itapproached the airport in Moroni. Flight 626 had left the Yemenicapital, Sana, carrying mostly Comorans and French nationals. Many of them had originated their journey in Paris and flew to Marseille before stopping and changing aircraft in Sana.European aviation officials have said that the plane operated by  Yemenia, Yemen's national carrier, was barred from French airportstwo years ago after "irregularities" were discovered in a safety review. A European Union official said the airline last year had passed safety requirements and was not blacklisted in Europe. Anger against the carrier continued at Charles de Gaulle Airport inParis among young protesters, many of them of Comoran descent, who tried to block passengers from a Yemenia flight. French mediareported that about 60 passengers did not check in but that the flightdeparted with 100 passengers.Comoran Vice President and Transport Minister Idi Nadhoim scoldedFrench authorities for not warning Comoros about the Airbus A310'squestionable safety record."I wish the French could have informed us about any irregularities with this plane," he said in a telephone interview with France 24television. "What is this? Discrimination between French passengersthat have to be protected in France and those French people who areleft to fly in these kinds of planes?"Bahia Bakari's story was told with fascination from Comoran villagesto towns across France. She has a broken collarbone and cuts on herface, and, according to a rescue worker who jumped into the sea tosave her, she could barely swim and was too weak to hold onto a buoy thrown to her from a boat. She was draped in blankets and givensugary hot water to drink.
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