MORONI – An Airbus A310-300 from Yemen with 153 people on board, including 66 French nationals, crashed into the sea off the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros as it approached in bad weather early on Tuesday, officials said.

A doctor in the Comoros told Reuters a child had been plucked alive from the sea and was being taken to a medical centre. The manager of the international airport in Moroni said the child was five. He said five bodies had also been found.

The Paris airports authority said 66 French nationals were aboard the plane, which was flying the final leg of a trip from Paris and Marseille to Comoros via Yemen.

A Yemeni aviation official said there were also nationals from Canada, Comoros, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, the Philippines and Yemen on the plane.

Two French military planes and a French ship left the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte and Reunion to search for the plane.

“A doctor from the military hospital aboard one of the rescue boats called the Mitsamiouli hospital to tell them a child had been rescued alive,” Halidi Ahmed Abdou, a doctor at a medical centre opened for survivors, told Reuters.

Full Story: Reuters/Yahoo PH