'When I Saw the Girl, I Wasn't Afraid to Dive In'
Madagascan sailor recounts how team searched for hours before spotting Bahia Bakari clinging to debris
New details emerged yesterday of the extraordinary escape of a single passenger - a 12-year-old girl - from the crash of Yemenia Flight 626, writes Jason Burke in Paris
Doe Cyrille, a merchant sailor from Madagascar, recounted in a written report how he and his crew searched for hours in violent winds and waves up to 16ft high for survivors before spotting Bahia Bakari clinging to a piece of debris.
Cyrille had been heading with a team of rescuers toward a distress signal after the plane crashed off the coast of the former French colony on Tuesday. Bahia's mother is among 152 passengers presumed dead. Cyrille said the crew had seen a girl "trying to get on to a piece of wood or plastic". A member of the rescue team threw a life jacket to the girl, who had spent 13 hours in the water, but the waves stopped her catching it.
One of the sailors, Libouna Maturaffe Soulemane, jumped into the sea with a flotation device.
"When I saw the girl I was not afraid to dive in," Soulemane told reporters. "She was calm ... She knew what she was doing ... The girl is very courageous."
The crew then threw a life buoy towards Soulemane and the girl and pulled them to their boat. Apart from hypothermia, Bahia suffered a fractured collarbone and bruises to her face, elbow and foot.
Her father, Paris-based Kassim Bakari, told French radio that his daughter "didn't feel a thing". She returned to France on board a French government plane on Thursday and is in hospital in Paris.
Doe Cyrille, a merchant sailor from Madagascar, recounted in a written report how he and his crew searched for hours in violent winds and waves up to 16ft high for survivors before spotting Bahia Bakari clinging to a piece of debris.
Cyrille had been heading with a team of rescuers toward a distress signal after the plane crashed off the coast of the former French colony on Tuesday. Bahia's mother is among 152 passengers presumed dead. Cyrille said the crew had seen a girl "trying to get on to a piece of wood or plastic". A member of the rescue team threw a life jacket to the girl, who had spent 13 hours in the water, but the waves stopped her catching it.
One of the sailors, Libouna Maturaffe Soulemane, jumped into the sea with a flotation device.
"When I saw the girl I was not afraid to dive in," Soulemane told reporters. "She was calm ... She knew what she was doing ... The girl is very courageous."
The crew then threw a life buoy towards Soulemane and the girl and pulled them to their boat. Apart from hypothermia, Bahia suffered a fractured collarbone and bruises to her face, elbow and foot.
Her father, Paris-based Kassim Bakari, told French radio that his daughter "didn't feel a thing". She returned to France on board a French government plane on Thursday and is in hospital in Paris.
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