France and U.S. join Comoros plane search

The crashed plane was the second Airbus to plunge into the sea this month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing 228 people on board on June 1.

FRENCH BAN

The Paris-Marseille-Yemen leg of the Yemenia flight was flown by an Airbus A330. In Sanaa, those passengers flying on to the Comoros changed onto a second plane, the A310 that crashed.

French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said Paris had banned this specific A310 from its airspace after faults were found in 2007.

Comoran vice-president Nadhoim, speaking on France 24 television Wednesday, criticised French authorities for failing to pass on that information to Comoros.

"Bearing in mind that these are planes made by Airbus, a big European company, we would have expected France to pass on to us the list of aircraft banned from flying in Europe," he said.

But Bussereau warned against quick assumptions. "The issue is not Airbus, this or that model of plane. When you have an aviation disaster it's a number of things, sometimes negligence, pilot error, or bad weather," he said on France Inter radio.

Yemen's transport minister said the plane was thoroughly checked in May under Airbus supervision. "It was in line with international standards," Khaled Ibrahim al-Wazeer told Reuters.

Yemenia is 51 percent owned by Yemen and 49 percent by Saudi Arabia. Airbus said it was dispatching a team of investigators to the Comoros. It said the aircraft was built in 1990 and had been used by Yemenia since 1999.

A Yemenia official said there were 142 passengers including three infants, and 11 crew, on the plane.