Hunt for Yemeni black boxes

2009-07-06 17:01

Nairobi - French aviation experts set out in speedboats from the Comoros Islands on Monday, trying to pinpoint the exact location of the black boxes from a flight that crashed into the Indian Ocean last week, killing 152 people.

The aviation investigation agency BEA said a French submarine had picked up signal beacons from the black boxes on Sunday.

Pressure is mounting on Yemenia Airways to prove that the condition of its downed Airbus 310 was not to blame for Tuesday's fatal accident.

At least 15 000 people accusing the company of negligence demonstrated outside the airlines' offices in France over the weekend. They say the airline uses good quality planes to fly between France and Yemen, and then transfers passengers onto substandard planes to fly between Yemen and the Comoros Islands, where Flight 626 crashed as it tried to land in heavy wind.

Several safety concerns

Yemenia withdrew the plane from French airspace after French officials flagged several safety concerns during an inspection of the aircraft in 2007. Sixty-six French citizens were aboard the plane.

Ali Abou Abasse, a senior Comoran police officer co-ordinating the search and rescue site at the coastal town of Mistamiouli, said the French BEA team would determine how deep in the ocean and how far from the coastline the black boxes from the flight are located. He said it was not clear how long investigators would need to locate the boxes, which house the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

"If they are more than 60m deep, then robots will be used to film the location of the boxes," Abasse said.

The retrieval of the black boxes will help explain the causes of the crash, which had only one survivor - a 12-year-old girl whose mother is presumed dead in the accident. She survived by clinging to debris for up to 13 hours before being rescued.

France was sending robots to the Comoros, expected to arrive by July 12. Abasse also said so far no bodies from the crash have been recovered. One body was found on Sunday in the sea but it was not related to the crash, he said.

Angry relatives of passengers picketed the airline's offices in France on Monday for the sixth day running, accusing it of using substandard aircraft.

The airline says it is too early to know what caused the accident but strong winds were reported when the Airbus A310 was trying to land. In Paris, a Yemenia official said Monday the airline's flights from France to Comoros, suspended late last week, would remain suspended for months.

"Yemenia has decided to calm things down... the company has decided to suspend the flights for the time being until September," Mohamed Zoubeidi said.

- AP