Grand Comoros

Published on Saturday 29 August 2009 19:51

THE second black box from a Yemenia Airways flight that crashed into the Indian Ocean in June with 153 people aboard was recovered yesterday.

A teenage girl was the only survivor when Flight 626 from Paris to Moroni via Yemen plunged into the sea on June 30.

Colonel Ismael Daho, leading the hunt for the black boxes, said the plane's voice recorder had now been passed to a team investigating the crash.

The flight's data recorder was recovered using a remote-controlled robot on Friday

Red Cross co-ordinator Abdourhamane Bacari said teams will continue work for another two weeks to bring up wreckage and look for more bodies. Around 37 bodies have been found so far.

It is hoped the black boxes can help establish the cause of the crash. Angry relatives of the victims have accused Yemenia of operating an unsafe plane, but it said high winds and bad weather were to blame.

Yemeni, French and Comoros authorities have been working to recover the boxes, which lay at a depth of 3,900ft nine miles north-west of Grand Comoros.