| Jet crashes off Comoros with 153 on board |
A passenger jet from Yemen with 153 people on board crashed in the Indian Ocean early Tuesday as it tried to land during heavy wind on the island nation of Comoros, a Yemeni aviation official said.
Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader said there were 142 passengers and a crew of 11 Yemenis on board when the plane, which had set off from the Yemeni capital of San'a, went down before landing in Moroni, on the main island of Grand Comore.
The majority of the passengers were from the Comoros islands, returning home from Paris, he said. Those on board included families with children and there were at least 3 babies on board, he added.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement that 66 of the passengers were French. He said French aviation and naval support was heading to help in search operations at the Comoros government's request.
According to Paris Airports press service, 67 of the passengers on board the Airbus 310 had flown from France on Monday on an Airbus 330. Most of them were from the French city of Marseille, which has a large Comoros community and where the plane briefly landed to pick up more crew and passengers.
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 identifies the plane's serial number as 535, and 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.
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