Gulf | Yemen
Yemenia Airways plane crashes in sea off Comoros; 153 on board
A Yemeni airport official says a plane from Yemen's national carrier bound for the Indian Ocean Comoros Islands has crashed in the sea.
- Agencies
- Published: 07:19 June 30, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- An unidentified relative of a passenger cries at Marseille airport, southern France, Tuesday June 30, 2009 after a jet from Yemen with 153 people on board crashed in the Indian Ocean early Tuesday as it tried to land during heavy wind on the island nation of Comoros.
Moroni: An Airbus A310-300 from Yemen with 153 people on board crashed into choppy seas as it tried to land in bad weather on the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros on Tuesday, officials said.
Two French military planes and a French ship left the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte and Reunion to search for the Yemenia aircraft that was carrying nationals from France and Comoros.
An official from the Yemeni state carrier said the plane had 142 passengers, including three infants, and 11 crew on board. It was flying from Sanaa to Moroni, the capital of the main island of the Comoros archipelago.
"The flight was expected at 2230 GMT. Before landing the control tower lost communication with the crew," said Hadji Ali, the director of Moroni international airport.
"The weather conditions were unfavourable with strong winds," he added.
It is the second Airbus to plunge into the sea this month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing 228 people on board on June 1.
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In 1996, a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 also crashed into the sea off the Comoros islands in 1996, killing 125 of 175 passengers and crew.
"Two French military aircraft have left from the islands of Mayotte and Reunion to search the identified zone, and a French vessel has left Mayotte," said Ali.
Coming into land
"The plane has crashed and we still don't know exactly where. We think it's in the area of Mitsamiouli," Comoros Vice-President Idi Nadhoim had said earlier from the airport.
Ibrahim Kassim, a representative from regional air security body ASECNA, said the plane had probably come down 5 to 10 km from the coast, and civilian and military boats had set off to search the rough waters.
ASECNA - the Agency for Aviation Security and Navigation in Africa and Madagascar - covers Francophone Africa.
The town of Mitsamiouli is on the main island Grande Comore.
Interior Minister Hamid Bourhane told Reuters the army had sent small speedboats to an area between the village of Ntsaoueni and the airport.
"At the moment we don't have any information about whether there are any survivors," he said.
A medical worker in Mitsamiouli said he had been called in.
"They have just called me to come to the hospital. They said a plane had crashed," he said.
A United Nations official at the airport, who declined to be named, said the control tower had received notification the plane was coming into land, and then lost contact with it.
Yemenia is 51 percent owned by the Yemeni government and 49 percent owned by the Saudi Arabian government. Its fleet includes two Airbus 330-200s, four Airbus 310-300s and four Boeing 737-800s, according to the company Web site.
The Comoros covers three small volcanic islands, Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli, in the Mozambique channel, 300 km northwest of Madagascar and a similar distance east of the African mainland.
On Sunday, a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A310-300, registration AP-BEG performing flight PK-363 from Quetta to Karachi with 163 passengers, was climbing through about 7000 feet out of Quetta, when smoke started to fill the cabin. The crew declared emergency and returned to Quetta, where the airplane landed safely. The passengers disembarked normally via stairs, no injuries occured.
Do you know anyone who was on the Yemenia Airways flight to Comoros? We would like to hear from you.
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