Two black boxes of Yemenia airbus detected, plane possibly shot down by French missile

Yemenia’s ill-fated plane’s two black boxes’ location has been detected and they will be recovered when the equipment arrives in the next few hours, said Hamid Faraj, the General Aviation Authority Manager today.

Meanwhile, Yemenia Airways said that it will organize a rally at the French Embassy in Sana’a on Tuesday, against what they describe as the prevention by French troops of Yemeni divers from entering a large area where the Airbus 310 wreckage is expected to be.

Victims’ relatives and friends will also organize a demonstration at the French embassy, demanding cooperation with Yemeni and Comorian authorities in the search for the two black boxes and the bodies and any survivors said Yemenia Public Relation's Manager, Khalid al-Kaniai'.

Sources at Yemenia from the beginning did not rule out the prospect that the plane was shot down over an external reaction because no appeal for help was heard from the captain after he contacted Moroni airport for landing amid severe weather and sea conditions.

In the same context, the President of the Republic of Comoros Ahmad Abdullah Sambi, asked President Ali Abdullah Saleh to continue Yemenia Airways' flights to the Comorian capital, as it is the sole air carrier to Comoros.

The request comes in a letter from President Sambi to President Ali Abdullah Saleh handed over by Comorian Minister of Foreign Relations Ahmad Saeed Jafar.

The letter addressed the latest developments of the Yemeni plane crash saga off Comoros' coastlines last Tuesday.

The Comorian president expressed his personal condolences to President Saleh and the Yemeni people concerning the victims of the crash.

He affirmed his country's keenness on boosting the brotherly relations between the two countries, confirming that the airplane accident will not affect the two countries' ties and joint cooperation.

A Comorian official told the London based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper that they are not ruling out the possibility that the Yemenia Airbus 310 was shot down with a missile, ensuring that the French Ambassador in Moroni told some top Comorian government officials that there were French Navy vessels performing maneuvers in the area of the accident a day before the plane crash. He also accused French navy authorities of intentionally driving the rescue teams away from the accident area.

President Sambi drew the audience’s attention to the issue that France is not showing enough cooperation for the rescue of survivors, recovering bodies, and cleaning up the wreckage from the plane at a meeting held by the Comorian government’s rescue teams yesterday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He said that there has been no progress achieved in discovering or recovering survivors and their property, ensuring that the French know exactly where the wreckage is located, but are directing the divers to other areas.

He added that rescue teams were formed from divers of the four countries of France, Yemen, USA and Comoros; however, their access to the crash site has been limited. A French submarine spotted the wreckage but the government has denied access to it through ambiguous ways.   

Sambi added that the quick, French withdrawal of the surviving French girl Bahia al-Bakri aroused suspicions because she is the only eyewitness of the accident.

"We have unofficial information from French war vessels in the area which were presumably conducting undeclared military maneuvers near the plane,” said the Comorian official, adding that “Perhaps the plane was at the wrong hour and place at that moment.”

He said that this story has been circulating within Government agencies, adding that the girl told one of her rescuers of her hearing a large noise and a large explosion coming from outside the plane. The French feared this, and in response, quickly sent a Minister to ensure that the only survivor would not say things detrimental to the French military and government.

He went on to say that it is in the favor of France that the bodies stay underwater for a long time, so as to not disclose what happened.

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