Yemen jet crashes in Indian Ocean

A Yemeni airliner with about 150 people on board has crashed in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros archipelago.

"We don't know if there are any survivors," Comoros Vice-President Idi Nadhoim told Reuters news agency.

The Airbus 310 was operated by the Yemeni state carrier Yemenia Air, and flying from the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Reports say it was due in the Comoros capital Moroni at about 0230 (0030 BST). Most of the passengers were believed to be travelling from Paris.

The three islands of Comoros are about 300km (190 miles) northwest of Madagascar in the Mozambique channel.

The exact location of the crash was not immediately known.

But a civil aviation official told the BBC that the plane was probably a few kilometres from Moroni, when it crashed.

There were unconfirmed reports that the plane had attempted to land but aborted the landing. It was not seen again.

A search is under way, involving two French military aircraft and a French vessel, the director general of Moroni International Airport, Hadji Madi Ali, told Reuters.

A resident near the airport told the BBC about 100 people were trying to get into the airport to find out more information, but without much success.

In 1996, a hijacked Ethiopian airliner came down in the same area - most of the 175 passengers and crew were killed.

On 1 June an Air France Airbus 330 travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board.

The cause of that crash has not been identified.

Source:BBC