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dpa
Paris
The sole survivor of a 2009 plane crash off the Comoros islands that claimed the lives of 152 people described the final minutes to a Paris court on Monday.
“I felt turbulence, but I thought that was normal,” Bahia Bakari, 12, said. “Suddenly I felt an electric shock that paralysed my whole body and went upwards. I had no chance to react.”
She criticized Yemenia Airways for not sending a representative to the court hearing. “I would have wanted them to listen to us, to listen to me, to have felt myself respected,” she said.
Bakari recalled how she had become conscious again in the sea where she clung to a piece of wreckage. “I heard cries for help in the water, but I was completely alone,” she said. She spent 10 hours in the sea before being rescued.
She described how she had continued to hope that her mother had also survived, only to find out in hospital that she had died.
Life with three younger siblings and without her mother had not been easy. “I knew my siblings needed our mother, but I couldn’t replace her,” Bakari said. Several relatives present in court left the proceedings overcome with emotion.
For two weeks the court has been examining whether flight operator Yemenia must answer for manslaughter and unintentional injuries.
The victims - 65 of whom were French - had departed from Paris or Marseilles before landing in Yemen’s capital Sana’a to make their connecting flight to the Comoros, an archipelago off Africa’s east coast.
Shortly before landing in the capital, Moroni, the Airbus jet went down into the Indian Ocean amid poor weather conditions, with human error believed to have been to blame.
The French civil aviation safety authority BEA determined that mistakes by the pilot caused the crash. One question is whether he was sufficiently trained, or whether the runway was not properly lit.
If the airline is found to have been at fault, it may be fined up to ?225,000 ($237,500).
There are 560 joint plaintiffs in the trial, according to the court.
Paris
The sole survivor of a 2009 plane crash off the Comoros islands that claimed the lives of 152 people described the final minutes to a Paris court on Monday.
“I felt turbulence, but I thought that was normal,” Bahia Bakari, 12, said. “Suddenly I felt an electric shock that paralysed my whole body and went upwards. I had no chance to react.”
She criticized Yemenia Airways for not sending a representative to the court hearing. “I would have wanted them to listen to us, to listen to me, to have felt myself respected,” she said.
Bakari recalled how she had become conscious again in the sea where she clung to a piece of wreckage. “I heard cries for help in the water, but I was completely alone,” she said. She spent 10 hours in the sea before being rescued.
She described how she had continued to hope that her mother had also survived, only to find out in hospital that she had died.
Life with three younger siblings and without her mother had not been easy. “I knew my siblings needed our mother, but I couldn’t replace her,” Bakari said. Several relatives present in court left the proceedings overcome with emotion.
For two weeks the court has been examining whether flight operator Yemenia must answer for manslaughter and unintentional injuries.
The victims - 65 of whom were French - had departed from Paris or Marseilles before landing in Yemen’s capital Sana’a to make their connecting flight to the Comoros, an archipelago off Africa’s east coast.
Shortly before landing in the capital, Moroni, the Airbus jet went down into the Indian Ocean amid poor weather conditions, with human error believed to have been to blame.
The French civil aviation safety authority BEA determined that mistakes by the pilot caused the crash. One question is whether he was sufficiently trained, or whether the runway was not properly lit.
If the airline is found to have been at fault, it may be fined up to ?225,000 ($237,500).
There are 560 joint plaintiffs in the trial, according to the court.
