Bahia Bakari, teen survivor of Yemenia crash tells how she clung to floating wreckage

The injured 14-year-old sole survivor of the Comoros plane crash told yesterday how she clung to floating wreckage for 13 hours before she was found.

Bahia Bakari was flung clear of the Yemenia Airbus when it smashed into the Indian Ocean on its final approach.

Bahia Bakari, the teenage girl who miraculously survived the Yemenia acrash off the Comoros coast, receives treatment in a local hospital.

She had been travelling to the archipelago off Africa's east coast with her mother, who is feared to have died along with the other 151 people on board.

Her father, who remained at the family's home in France, said she was able to talk to him on the phone.

"Daddy, I don't know what happened, but the plane fell into the water and I found myself in the water ... surrounded by darkness. I could not see anyone," Bahia told her father, Kassim Bakari, by phone from the hospital.

Kassim Bakari said she suddenly found herself beside the plane.

"She couldn't feel anything, and found herself in the water. She heard people speaking around her but she couldn't see anyone in the darkness," he said.

"She's a very timid girl, I never thought she would escape like that."