Child found as Airbus crashes into sea

A five-year-old child is believed to be the only survivor of a plane that crashed as it tried to land in bad weather on the archipelago of Comoros, about 200 miles north of Madagascar. The Airbus A310-300, operated by the Yemeni state carrier Yemenia, went down with 153 people aboard.

It is the second Airbus plane to crash in a month after an Air France jetliner plunged into the Atlantic Ocean killing all 228 passengers and crew.

Two French military planes (above) and a French ship from the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte and Reunion are searching for survivors from the Yemenia aircraft that was flying from Sanaa, capital of Yemen, to Moroni, capital of the main island of the Comoros archipelago. It had been due to land at 2.30am local time.

It is understood that most of the passengers had begun their journey in Paris - the destination of the Air France plane that crashed on June 1 - and were either Comoran or French.

The Yemenia plane is an Airbus A310-300. The Air France jet was an Airbus A330-200.

The crash comes as the French military continue to trawl the Atlantic crash zone for the two 'black box' flight recorders. The recorders emit a signal to aid detection, but it lasts only 30 days or so - which means time is fast running out.

Only 51 bodies were found from the Air France crash before rescuers finally gave up the search last week.