France begins investigating 2009 Yemenia Airways crash that killed 152 people

A French court has opened hearings in the case of the 2009 crash of a Yemenia Airways flight that killed 152 people. The sole survivor, then aged 12, said it was important to "finally know the truth".

A Comoran soldier looks at wreckage recovered from the Indian Ocean in a disused airport hangar in Moroni, after a Yemenia Airlines Airbus A310 aircraft crashed on June 30, 2009, killing 152 on board. AFP - IBRAHIM YOUSSOUF

The Yemeni national airline, whose representatives will not be in the dock due to the country's civil war, faces a maximum fine of €225,000 for involuntary homicide and injuries in a trial expected to last four weeks.

On 29 June, 2009, flight Yemenia 626 left from Paris, then picked up other passengers in Marseille, southern France. It stopped over in Sanaa, Yemen, where the 142 passengers and 11 crew members boarded another plane to complete the journey to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros islands.

Among those aboard, 66 were French citizens from the overseas territory of Mayotte.

Just before 11:00 pm on 30 June, the aging Airbus A310 crashed about 15 kms off the Comorian coast, killing everyone on board except Bahia Bakari, aged just 12 years old at the time.

In interviews and a book of her own, Bakari remembered "turbulence" during the approach, before feeling what seemed to be an electric shock and then blacking out – only to find herself in the Indian Ocean.

Franco-Comoran Bahia Bakari, the sole survivor of Yemenia Flight 626, an Airbus A310 that crashed into the sea off the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros, arrives at the trial for the 2009 plane crash that left 152 dead, 1 alive at the courthouse in Paris, France, Monday, May 9, 2022. AP - Francois Mori

'Apprehension and relief'

She survived by clinging onto floating debris from the plane for 11 hours before being rescued by a fishing boat the following day.

Bakari was present as proceedings opened Monday in Paris' main courthouse, as were around 100 family members or friends of the crash victims.

Earlier, she told France 3 television she would attend with both "apprehension" and "relief".

The trial is needed, she said, to "finally know the truth". She is expected to testify on 23 May.

People from the Comoran community in France demonstrate and pray on July 13, 2009 at Marseille airport, southern France, after more than 150 were killed in the Yemenia crash. (Photo : AFP)

13 years of waiting

After studying the plane's black boxes later in 2009, French aviation investigators from the BEA (Bureau of Investigations and Analysis) found that pilot error was the cause of the crash.

France accused the Comoros government of dragging its feet in the investigation, while victims' families accused Yemen of lobbying to hinder bringing the national carrier to trial.

In 2015, the company was ordered in civil proceedings by two French courts to pay more than 30 million euros to the victims' families, who deplored the slowness of the procedure between France and the Comoros, a former colony that became independent in 1975.

Then in 2018, a confidential agreement was signed between Yemenia and 835 beneficiaries, who had to wait several more years to receive compensation.

Families of victims now want to know the truth about how the accident happened.

"Thirteen years of waiting is too long, but it's an opportunity to get to the truth and find out the causes and circumstances of this drama," Saïd Assoumani, president of a victims' association, told RFI.

"At the time it was pejoratively called the 'poor people's crash' because there was little or no media coverage and it wasn't taken seriously by the French authorities."

Ibrahim Mogni, secretary general of another victims' association (AFVCA) lost his mother, brother and sister in the crash. "It's been 13 years of waiting, and working, we hope to shed light on the heavy responsibility Yemenia bears."

Rescuers gather at Galawa Beach, 35 kilometers from Moroni, Comoros, July 1, 2009, as they prepare to search the area after a Yemenia Airbus passenger plane crashed into the Indian Ocean off the island nation of Comoros. AP - Sayyid Azim

'Not fit to fly'

Investigators and experts found there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, blaming instead "inappropriate actions by the crew during the approach to Moroni airport, leading to them losing control".

But Yemenia Airways has been attacked by prosecutors for pilot training "riddled with gaps" and continuing to fly to Moroni at night despite its non-functioning landing lights.

"Yemenia remains deeply marked by this catastrophe... nevertheless it maintains its innocence," the company's lawyer Leon-Lef Forster said.

Maadi Fatouma, who set up a support group "SOS Voyage aux Comores", maintains the plane was not fit to fly.

"Our country, France, didn't listen to us, neither did the Comoros islands, and even less so Yemenia whose attitude was 'never mind, either they'll arrive at destination or die en route, it doesn't matter, we're filling our pockets'."

Fatouma says many passenger testimonies refer to mistreatment by Yemenia.

"On arrival in Sanaa, they were put into containers while waiting for transfers due to lack of hotels. Everyone saw the planes were ancient but didn't dare talk about it, thinking it was perhaps the odd plane," she told RFI. "But then we gathered more and more testimonies saying the same thing."

Around 560 people have joined the suit as plaintiffs, many of them from the region around Marseille in southern France, home to many of the victims.