Teen survivor of Yemeni jet crash 'doing well'

Alain Joyandet, the French minister for cooperation, told i-Tele television that "it appears that the black boxes of the plane have been recovered." Joyandet gave no other details about recorders, which could provide key clues as to what happened.

Boats plied the waters Wednesday, trying to find other survivors. Yemen's embassy said five bodies had been found so far.

"The search is continuing," Joyandet said. "No other survivors have been found for the moment."

Both France and Airbus sent experts to the Comoros to aid in the investigation.

The tragedy — and dwindling hopes that anyone else made it out alive — prompted an outcry in Comoros, where residents have long complained of a lack of seat belts on Yemenia flights and planes so overcrowded that passengers had to stand in the aisles.

The Comoros, a former French colony of 700,000 people, is an archipelago of three main islands situated 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) south of Yemen, between Africa's southeastern coast and the island of Madagascar.

Gen. Bruno de Bourdoncle de Saint-Salvy, the senior commander for French forces in the southern Indian Ocean, said the Airbus 310 crashed in deep waters about nine miles (14.4 kilometers) north of the Comoran coast and 21 miles (34 kilometers) from the Moroni airport. Searchers encountered an oil slick at the site, the Yemeni Embassy statement said.

French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" in the plane's equipment during a 2007 inspection, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said.

European Union Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the airline had previously met EU safety checks and was not on the bloc's blacklist. But he said a full investigation was now being started amid questions why passengers were put on another jet in the Yemeni capital of San'a.

The vice president of Comoros criticized French officials for not telling his nation about any suspected problems.

"We wish the French could have informed us of any irregularity or any problems with that plane," Idi Nadhoim said Wednesday on France-24 television.

"Most if not all of the planes of Yemenia are Airbus," he said. "They are supposed to be serviced by Airbus."

"We trust the civil aviation authorities of the countries we are working with," he added, suggesting that French authorities discriminated against "those French who are left by themselves to fly this type of plane" — French citizens from former French colonies.

Airbus 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 since 1999.

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