Yemeni Airbus flight with 153 on board crashes in Indian Ocean

Most of the passengers on the Yemenia Air Airbus 310 were believed to be Comoros residents returning from Paris. Sixty-six French people were on the flight, AFP reported, citing an unidentified civil aviation official. The plane had stopped off in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, on the way to Moroni, the capital on the main island of the Comoros archipelago.

The Airbus SAS A310 plane, carrying 142 passengers and 11 crew members, was 15 minutes from landing in the Comoros Islands when it disappeared over the ocean, a Yemenia official, Taha al-Ashwal, said.

It wasn’t immediately known if anyone survived, al-Ashwal said, adding officials “lost contact” with the aircraft at 1 a.m. Wreckage of the jet was spotted off the coast of Comoros and some bodies were seen floating in the ocean about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the town of Moroni.

"The weather conditions were rough; strong wind and high seas. The wind speed recorded on land at the airport was 61km an hour. There could be other factors," Mohammad al-Sumairi, an official from Yemenia Air told reporters.

Ibrahim Kassim, a representative from Asenca, the regional air security body, said the plane was believed to have come down between three and six miles from the coast.

"We think the crash is somewhere along its landing approach," he said. "The weather is really not very favourable. The sea is very rough."

Military and civilian boats are helping in the search.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said said French aviation and naval support was heading to help in search operations at the Comoros government's request.

Christophe Prazuck, French military spokesman, says that patrol boat, the Rieuse and fregate Nivose, a reconnaissance ship, were being sent to crash site as well as Transall, a military transport plane. The French were sending divers as well as medical personnel on the plane, he said.