When hearing the news about the Yemenia Airways Airbus that crashed into the Indian Ocean I thought, well, we have another Air France situation – a plane that goes down/breaks up over water.  The Yemenia situation was different in that emergency crews knew of the location and were able to respond to the situation in a matter of hours, not spending days looking for the plane and debris.

The Yemenia Airways crash is also different in that there was one survivor – Bahai Bakari – a 13 year old girl that was thrown from the plane.  Her father, Kassim Bakari, gives an account of her story:

“She could hear people talking, but in the middle of the night she couldn’t see a thing. She managed to hold on to a piece of something,” said Bakari, whose wife was also on board the doomed flight and is presumed to be among the 152 victims.

“She said she was ejected from the plane,” Bakari said.

“When I had her on the phone, I asked her what happened and she said, ‘Daddy, I don’t know what happened, but the plane fell into the water and I found myself in the water … surrounded by darkness. I could not see anyone,’” Bakari said.

When I think about a plane crashing, let alone a plane crashing into the water, I usually don’t think of the best possible outcome.  I find the fact that she survived to be nothing short of astonishing.