Tuesday, June 30, 2009

葛摩‧在科摩羅群島印度洋失事‧載153人‧也門客機墜海 Survivor rescued from Yemenia plane crash - official

(葛摩‧莫羅尼)印度洋島國科摩羅副總統納杜瓦姆今日(週二,6月30日)表示,也門國營航空公司一架載有153人的A310型空中巴士,疑因惡劣天氣在鄰近這個群島的印度洋海域墜毀,機上人相信兇吉少。

發現部份屍體與殘骸

搜救飛機已經發現,一些遇難者的屍體和部份客機殘骸。

官員說,據信飛機是試圖在惡劣的天氣中降陸時墜毀。

科摩羅副總統兼交通和旅遊部長納杜瓦姆說,他們目前仍不清楚機上有無人員生還。

他透露,這起事故發生在週二凌晨,暫時未能確定失事原因,當局已經派士兵乘坐小型快艇,到相信是出事的海域搜索。

不具備海上搜救能力

科摩羅警方消息表示,飛機相信已經墜入公海。他說:“們確實不具備海上搜救的能力。”

法國派出2架軍機和一艘船只前往搜救。

航空公司職員說,機上有11名機組人員和142名乘客包括3名嬰兒,當中大多數是法國和科摩羅國民。

接獲降落訊息後失聯

機場控制塔人員表示,收到飛機稱將會降落後,就失去聯絡,當局估計飛機在降落科摩羅前,離岸5至10公里處墜落大海,又指當時天氣欠佳。

一名官員說,當時刮風,及掀巨浪。機場的地面風速達每小時61公里。但他不排除有其他原因導致飛機墜毀。

這是一個月內第二架空中巴士客機墜海。

6月1日,法國航空一架A330型空中巴士客機從巴西里約熱內盧前往巴黎途中在大西洋墜毀,機上所有乘客和機組人員據信部遇難。


DUBAI (Reuters) - A survivor was rescued from the sea off the Comoros where a Yemenia airlines aircraft crashed on Tuesday, a Yemenia official said.

"We still do not know the nationality or the gender of the person rescued. We have just learned from the Comoros that one person was rescued," Mohammad al-Sumairi, deputy general manager for Yemenia operations told Reuters by telephone from Sanaa.

MORONI, Comoros – A Yemenia jet with 153 people on board crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday as it tried to land during strong winds on the island nation of Comoros. Officials said one child was plucked alive from the sea.

There was no word on other survivors. At least three bodies were recovered, authorities said.

The crash comes two years after aviation officials reported faults with the aircraft, an Airbus 310 flying the last leg of a journey from Paris and Marseille to Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes. Most of the passengers were from Comoros, a former French colony. Sixty-six on board were French nationals.

A child was rescued from the water after the crash, according to Rachida Abdullah, a police immigration officer who works at the operations center in the Comoros, and Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader.

Qader said he was told the child was 5 years old. Further details on the rescue and the child's condition were not immediately available.

Three bodies from the flight were retrieved along with debris from the plane, Abdullah said.

Qader said it was too early to speculate on the cause and the flight data recorder had not been found, but the wind was 40 miles per hour (61 kph) as the plane was landing in the middle of the night.

"The weather was very bad ... the wind was very strong," he said, adding the windy conditions were hampering rescue efforts.

The Yemenia plane was the second Airbus to crash into the sea in as many months. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean May 31, killing all 228 people on board, as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

A crisis center once again was set up at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Many passengers were from the French city of Marseille, which has a large Comoros community.

"There is considerable dismay," said Stephane Salord, the consul general of the Comoros in the Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur region of France. "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.

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

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 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) north of the Comoran coast and 21 miles (34 kilometers) from the Moroni airport.

French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" during a 2007 inspection of the plane that went down, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said on i-Tele television Tuesday.

In Brussels, EU 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.

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 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.

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

French President Nicolas Sarkozy "expressed his deep emotion" about the crash and asked the French military to help in the rescue operation, particularly from the French islands of Mayotte and Reunion.

Yemenia airline officials say the 11-member crew was made up of six Yemenis, including the pilot, two Moroccans, one Indonesian, one Ethiopian and 1 Filipino. The officials asked that their named not be used because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

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