Bodies had been spotted in the water a few kilometers from Moroni, a Yemeni aviation official is quoted as saying by BBC.

The search team involving two military aircraft and a French military vessel also found wreckage from the plane and an oil slick. It is not clear whether there were any survivors from the 147 passengers and 11 crew on board.

Most of the passengers (66) were French, although many are thought to have dual French-Comoran citizenship.

This is the second air tragedy this month involving large numbers of French citizens.

On 1 June an Air France Airbus 330 traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board. The cause of this crash remains unknown.

It is not clear yet what caused the Yemenia Air crash either, but officials say there was bad weather in the area at the time.

The Airbus 310 flight IY626 was flying from the Yemeni capital Sanaa to the Comoros capital Moroni. Most of the passengers had traveled to Sanaa from Paris or Marseille on a different aircraft.

The three Comoros islands are about 300 km northwest of Madagascar in the Mozambique channel.

Yemenia Air is 51% owned by the Yemeni government and 49% by the Saudi government.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!