Reporting from Paris and Cairo — The 14-year-old girl believed to be the lone survivor of Tuesday's jetliner crash in the Indian Ocean was thrown from the plane and into the waves, where she heard voices but saw no one in the darkness, her father told a French radio station today.
"She is a very, very shy girl. I never thought she would survive like that," Kassim Bakari said of his daughter, Bahia, in an interview with French RTL radio from his Paris suburban home. "I can't say that it's a miracle. I can say that it is God's will.
"When I had her on the phone, I asked her what happened and she said, 'Daddy, I don't know what happened, but the plane fell into the water and I found myself in the water . . . surrounded by darkness. I could not see anyone,' " Bakari said.
Bahia Bakari, who floated with debris for 13 hours in the cold sea, was in stable condition at the El Maarouf Hospital in Moroni, the capital of Comoros, the island nation that the jetliner, carrying 153 people, was approaching when it went down.
Rescue workers and French and U.S. search planes scoured the area north of the archipelago today for more survivors as debris was scattered for miles across the ocean.
The French government announced that search teams spotted the signal to one of the plane's black box recorders. It was unclear if it was the cockpit voice recorder or the flight data recorder, but officials said search crews were working to retrieve it. Recorders are critical in determining what caused a crash.
The Yemeni government said preliminary indications were that bad weather may have caused the Airbus 310 to plunge as it approached the airport in Moroni. Flight 626 had left the Yemeni capital, Sana, carrying mostly Comorans and French nationals. Many of them had originated their journey in Paris and then flew to Marseille before stopping and changing aircraft in Sana.
European aviation officials raised concerns that the plane, operated by Yemen's national carrier, Yemenia, was barred from French airports two years ago after "irregularities" were discovered in a safety review. A European Union official said Yemenia in 2008 had passed safety requirements and was not blacklisted in Europe.
Anger against the carrier continued at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris by young protesters, many of them of Comoran descent, who tried to block passengers from a Yemenia flight. French media reported that about 60 passengers did not check in but that the flight departed with 100 passengers.
