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CNN) -- A young child has been recovered alive from a Yemeni jet crash in the Indian Ocean, an airline official said Tuesday.


Relatives of passengers of the plane that crashed await news at Marseille airport in southern France.

The child was the first person found alive from the jet, which was carrying more than 150 people en route to the island nation of Comoros from Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

The child was found in the waters and was taken to a hospital, said Captain Abdulkhalek al-Kadi, chairman of Yemenia Airways.

"One child is alive and we hope to find more," the chairman said.

He blamed the crash on bad weather. "It was high seas and windy weather," he said. Airline says more survivors will hopefully be found »

A reconnaissance plane had earlier spotted traces of the jet in the sea near the town of Mitsamiouli, Comoros Vice President Idi Nadhoim said Tuesday.

"There were no sign of survivors," he said before the child was found. "There are a few bodies floating and there is a lot of debris floating around."

The crash took place as the plane approached the Hahaya airport in Moroni. The plane tried but failed to land and then performed a U-turn before it crashed, Nadhoim said. Officials did not know why the plane could not land, he said. Recent plane crashes »

There were 142 passengers and 11 crew members aboard, Yemenia Air officials said.

Nadhoim offered another figure, saying there were 147 passengers.

Flight 626 left Sanaa at 9:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) for what was expected to be a four-and-a-half-hour flight. The airline has three regular flights a week to Moroni, off the east coast of Africa, about 2,900 km (1,800 miles) south of Yemen.

The crash occurred about 1:30 a.m., Nadhoim said.

Most of the passengers aboard the Airbus A310 were Comorans, an official at Sanaa's international airport told CNN.

An official at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris said there were also 66 French passengers aboard.

There was no indication of foul play behind the crash, the official in Yemen said.

Yemenia Air had used the jet since 1999, on about 17,300 flights, Airbus officials said. The company said it would assist in investigating the crash.

"We are extremely saddened and our thoughts are with the families, friends and loved ones affected by this accident," Airbus spokeswoman Maggie Bergsma told CNN.

"We are giving our maximum support and assistance to the authorities and the airline."

"This includes a team of Airbus experts that will go on site and our crisis center has been open since early this morning, where our specialists work in direct contact with the airline and the authorities," Bergsma added.

"The task now is to gather as much information as possible, including retrieval of the black boxes, to help us understand what happened. This will need time and patience."

The crash is the second involving an Airbus jet in a month. On June 1, an Air France Airbus A330 crashed off Brazil while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, France. All 228 aboard are presumed dead. The cause remains under investigation.