Toddler rescued from wreck of plane crash
A toddler was rescued alive today from the wreckage of an airliner that crashed trying to land in the Comoros islands, police said.
The child was pulled from the Indian Ocean amid wreckage of the Airbus 310.
Three bodies have also been retrieved, along with debris from the plane, but that no other survivors have been recovered so far.
The Yemeni Airbus 310 crashed with 142 passengers and a crew of 11 on board as it came into land in Moroni, on the main island of Grand Comore today.
Most of the passengers were from Comoros, returning from Paris. Sixty-six on board were French nationals.
A Yemeni official said the child was five years old.
He said it was too early to speculate on the reasons for the crash, adding that the flight data recorder hadn't been found.
"The weather was very bad ... the wind was very strong," he said.
General Bruno de Bourdoncle de Saint-Salvy, the senior commander for French forces in the southern Indian Ocean, said the Airbus 310 crashed in deep water 10 miles north of the Comoran coast.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said French aviation and naval support was heading to help in search operations at the Comoros government's request.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy "expressed his deep emotion" about the accident and asked the French military to help in the rescue operation, particularly from the French islands of Mayotte and Reunion.
The Comoros is an archipelago of three main islands situated about 1,800 miles south of Yemen, between Africa's south-eastern coast and Madagascar.
A French military spokesman said two navy ships were being sent to the crash site.
Airbus said the plane went into service 19 years ago and had accumulated 51,900 flight hours. It has been operated by Yemen Airways since 1999.
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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