Teen recovers after miracle rescue

Bahia Bakari, 12, the only known survivor of Tuesday's air crash off the Comoros islands that killed 152 people, was flying back home to Paris yesterday in a French government aircraft. "We are taking her to Paris to be with her father," French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet said. "Doctors consider there is no problem for her to be repatriated" despite a broken collar bone and burns to the knee.

Ms Bakari was rescued 10 hours after the Yemenia airlines Airbus A310 crashed into the Indian Ocean in the early hours of Tuesday, killing all 152 others on the flight to Moroni - including her mother.

The only known survivor of the crash of the Yemeni airliner clung to wreckage in the Indian Ocean for more than 10 hours before she was rescued, officials said yesterday, hailing the girl's courage.

Bahia Bakari, a timid 12-year-old, was recovering in hospital in the Comoros capital Moroni, a few miles from where the Yemenia airlines jet plunged into the sea.

"She showed admirable courage," France's Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet told reporters after meeting the girl in hospital.

"She spent close to 10 hours waiting to be rescued after the crash."

Bahia's father, Kassim Bakari, saud earlier that his daughter was ejected from the plane into the ocean, and suffered a fractured collarbone and burns to her knee, but no life-threatening injuries.

The Comoran told French radio Bahia was ejected from the plane as it hit the sea, after speaking with her by phone from her intensive care unit.

"She didn't feel a thing. She found herself in water," Mr Bakari told the RTL station.

Some others aboard the A310 survived the impact with the rough seas, at least for a while, the girl indicated to her father.

"She could hear people talking, but in the middle of the night she couldn't see a thing. She managed to hold on to a piece of something."

When her rescuers emerged in the clear light of day, more than 10 hours later according to the minister, she was too weakened to react.