Indian Ocean plane crash survivor reunites with family
Last Updated: Thursday, July 2, 2009 | 5:53 AM ET
CBC News
Bahia Bakari, the lone survivor after a Yemenia plane crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, is carried by ambulance at Le Bourget airport on Thursday. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)The young survivor of a plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean arrived back in Paris on Thursday, reuniting with her father and three siblings.
Bahia Bakari, 14, was returned from the island nation of Comoros on board a chartered Falcon-900 jet equipped with medical facilities.
The girl's father, Kassim, and several family members met Bahia's plane at Le Bourget airport before she was transferred to the Armand-Trousseau Children's Hospital, east of the French capital.
The teen is the only survivor of Yemenia Airways Flight 626, which crashed into the Indian Ocean between the southeastern African coast and Madagascar while en route from the Yemeni capital of San'a to Comoros on Tuesday morning. The other 152 people on board the plane, including Bahia's mother, are presumed dead.
Kassim Bakari, the father of plane crash survivor Bahia Bakari, speaks to reporters in Paris. (Remy de la Mauviniere/Associated Press)"In the midst of the mourning, there is Bahia. It is a miracle, it is an absolutely extraordinary battle for survival," said French Minister for Co-operation Alain Joyandet, who had accompanied her on the flight.
Bahia suffered a broken collarbone and bruises in the crash and was suffering from hypothermia when she was pulled from the water. She is expected to undergo scans at the hospital to ensure none of her internal organs have been damaged.
"It's an enormous message that she sends to the world … almost nothing is impossible," said Joyandet. "We will do everything we can to help her."
Bahia — who was described by her family as a fragile girl who can barely swim — is believed to have been somehow ejected from the aircraft and to have clung to the Airbus 310's debris for more than 13 hours before she was rescued.
American and French aircraft are continuing to scour the area where the plane went down in high winds and heavy turbulence while making its landing approach.
Late Wednesday local time, French officials retracted claims that one of the plane's black boxes had been located. French Cmdr. Bertrand Mortemard de Boisse told The Associated Press that a signal detected from the debris was from a distress beacon and not from one of the plane's black boxes.
Officials said they believe most of the passengers were trapped inside the plane on impact and they are searching the ocean depths for the wreckage.
Most of the passengers were from the Comoros, a former French colony. Sixty-six on board were French nationals. Ottawa resident Emsumata Abdoulghani was also on board the flight according to the airline's passenger list.
The catastrophe has prompted an outcry in Comoros, where residents have long complained of a lack of seatbelts on Yemenia flights and planes so overcrowded that passengers had to stand in the aisles.
With files from The Associated Press
