FILE - Rescuers gather at Galawa Beach, 35 kilometers from Moroni, Comoros, July 1, 2009, as they prepare to search the area after a Yemenia Airbus passenger plane crashed into the Indian Ocean off the island nation of Comoros, early Tuesday, as it attempted to land in the dark amid howling winds. The lone survivor of a 2009 plane crash that killed 152 other people is expected to attend the trial of Yemen's main airline which is opening Monday May 9, 2022 in Paris.
The 2009 Yemenia flight left from Paris before picking up other passengers in the southern French city of Marseille. It made a stopover in Sanaa, Yemen, where 142 passengers and 11 crew members boarded another plane to continue to Moroni, the Comoros capital. During the landing in strong winds, the aging Airbus A310 crashed about 15 kilometers off the Comorian coast on June 30, 2009.Yemenia is being tried in Paris over Bakari’s injuries and the deaths of 65 French citizens.
In 2015, the company was ordered in civil proceedings by two French courts to pay more than 30 million euros to the victims' families, who deplored the slowness of the procedure between France and the Comoros, a former colony that became independent in 1975.