Search for plane debris widens

2009-07-08 16:01

Arusha - The search for wreckage and remains from a plane that plunged into the Indian Ocean last week has widened from the Comoros Islands to Tanzania, officials said Wednesday.

Only one girl survived the Yemenia Airways crash off the Comoros, which killed 152 people as it tried to land June 30.

Teams from the French aviation investigation agency BEA and the French navy have been searching for a week for the planes' black boxes off the Comoran coast. The mission continued on Wednesday despite rough seas, Comoran official Ali Abou Abasse said.

The Tanzanian police commander on Mafia Island said local fishermen and a government rescue team joined the search on Wednesday. Absalom Mwakyoma said strong currents may have carried wreckage and bodies from the plane nearly 500 miles (800 kilometres) along the east African shores to Tanzania.

Co-operating fully

French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Eric Chevallier said France was "co-operating fully and in all transparency with all the parties concerned by this tragedy" .

He declined to comment on threats by Yemenia Airways to cancel Airbus orders following criticism of the plane's safety record by French officials.

"The main thing at this point is to find bodies of victims, as well as for the needs of the investigation, the aircraft's black boxes," he said.

Investigators have reportedly concluded that the black boxes - the plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders - lie in waters too deep for divers and are awaiting specialised robots that can operate underwater. The robots are due in Comoros on July 12.

Protests in France over conditions on Yemenia planes have drawn over 15 000 people. Critics claim the airline uses good planes for trips to Europe and worse planes for the trip from Yemen to the Comoros Islands.

- AP