Black Boxes Are Detected From Yemeni Jet
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PARIS — Underwater search teams have detected the acoustic beacons from the two flight recorders of a Yemeni jet that crashed last week in the Indian Ocean, France’s crash investigation agency said Sunday.
The agency, the French Office of Investigations and Analyses, said the signals were located Sunday morning by a submarine and were confirmed to be coming from the “black box” recorders of the plane, an Airbus A310.
The plane, Yemenia Flight 626, was carrying 142 passengers and 11 crew members from the Yemeni capital, Sana, to Moroni, on the island nation of Comoros. The flight, which originated in Paris on a different aircraft and stopped in Marseille, continued to Yemen, where passengers and crew switched aircraft. A 12-year-old girl from Marseille is the only survivor of the crash, which happened as the plane tried to land in strong winds.
The black boxes, which contain data on the plane’s speed, altitude and heading in the moments before it crashed, as well as recordings of the crew’s conversations in the cockpit, contain important clues that may help investigators determine the cause of the accident.
French air safety officials said the plane had been banned from the country’s airspace after numerous faults were discovered in a 2007 inspection. But Yemenia executives have said that the airline passed international safety audits in the spring of 2008 and that the plane in question underwent a thorough maintenance check in May.
Yemenia said Saturday that it had suspended all of its flights from Sana to Moroni until further notice. The airline, which on Thursday suspended all service to and from Marseille, said it would reimburse passengers.
