Thursday, July 2, 2009

'Miracle' plane crash survivor back in France

PARIS, France (CNN) -- The teenage girl who is the only known survivor of this week's airliner crash in the Comoros Islands arrived back in France to a warm welcome on Thursday.

Bahia Bakari holds her father's hand as she lies on a stretcher in a plane after landing in France.

Bahia Bakari holds her father's hand as she lies on a stretcher in a plane after landing in France.

Bahia Bakari arrived at Paris' Le Bourget airport early on Thursday morning on a French government plane and was met by her father.

Bahia, said by her father to be 13 despite different ages being reported by other news outlets, was carried off the plane on a stretcher.

Suffering from exhaustion, a fractured collarbone and burns to her knee, Bahia was transferred to a Paris hospital.

"She is doing well," her father Kassim Bakari told reporters, Agence France-Presse reported, saying he was "very, very grateful" to be reunited with his daughter.

Barely able to swim, Bahia was thrown into the Indian Ocean in pitch darkness when the Yemenia Airways jet plunged into the sea after attempting to land at Moroni airport.

The Airbus A310 went down early Tuesday with 142 passengers and 11 crew members on board a flight that originated in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

The jet vanished from radar when it was about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Comoros' capital, Moroni.

Bahia was on the flight with her mother, whose body has not been found. Video Watch more about Bahia's escape »

"She really needs a few days' rest. She will be recovering with her family. She just learned that she has lost her mother," France's Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet told reporters in Paris.

The head of the rescue team in the Comoros told RTL radio the teenager survived astonishing odds to survive. "It is truly, truly, miraculous," said Ibrahim Abdoulazeb. "The young girl can barely swim." Read how people survive air crashes

Another rescuer told France's Europe 1 radio the girl was spotted in the rough sea among bodies and plane debris in darkness about two hours after the crash.

Bahia's father said he did not believe he would see his wife or daughter again after learning of the crash.

"She is a very, very shy girl. I would never have thought she would have survived like this. I can't say that it's a miracle, I can say that it is God's will," he said.

He described how his daughter was ejected from the plane into the Indian Ocean.

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