Teenage Survivor Talks About Hours After Plane Crash

Officials are calling it a miracle. 13 year old Bahia Bakari managed to stay afloat in rough seas for thirteen hours before being rescued.

She told her father she was thrown from the plane when the A310 Airbus hit the water on its approach to Moroni Airport.

Kassim Bakari, the girl's father, talked about her experience, "She said: 'We saw the plane fall in the water. I found myself in the water. I was hearing people speak but I couldn't see anyone. I was in the dark. I couldn't see anything. Daddy, I couldn't swim very well. I grabbed on to something but I don't know what'."

That "something" Bahia described grabbing on to was actually a piece of the plane wreckage. She held on from 1:30 am until 3pm when rescuers arrived.

Sergeant Said Abdilai, one of the rescuers, said: "We tried to throw a lifebelt. She could not grab it. I had to jump in the water to get her." He gave the girl warm water with sugar, he said. "She was shaking. We put four covers on her."

Bahia's physical injuries were relatively minor. She has cuts on her face, a broken collarbone and burns on her knees.

The girl was traveling with her mother to visit family in the Comoros. The mother did not survive. A total of 153 people had been on the plane, everyone but Bahia died.

Pilot error is believed to be the cause of the crash, although there is outrage in the community over what people are calling "shoddy" practices at the airline. They say the aircraft are substandard. Bahia's father said, "How can they allow such flying coffins?"

Yemeni Airlines is denying the claims that the plane was not airworthy.