Yemenia Flight 626 was a flight on an Airbus A310-324 twin-engine jet airliner operated by Yemenia that was flying a scheduled international service, from Sana'a in Yemen to Moroni in Comoros, when it crashed on 30 June 2009 at around 1:50 am local time (10:50 pm on 29 June UTC) while on approach to Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport, killing all but one of the 153 passengers and crew on board.

[1][2] The sole survivor, 12-year-old girl Bahia Bakari,[nb 1] was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for thirteen hours.

[7] The final report on the incident concluded that the crew's inappropriate flight control inputs led to an aerodynamic stall.

[8]: 11–12 The crash occurred at night, off the north coast of Grande Comore, Comoros, in the Indian Ocean several minutes from the airport.

[14] An unnamed United Nations official at the airport said that the control tower had received a notification that the plane was approaching to land before losing contact.

[15] An unseasonably strong cold front had moved through the Comoros Islands, bringing winds gusting to 64 km/h (40 mph; 35 kn) and conditions favorable for light to moderate turbulence.

[16] Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader said the wind speed was 61 km/h (38 mph; 33 kn) at the time the aircraft was landing.

It is located in the Mozambique Channel, 300 km (190 mi) northwest of Madagascar and a similar distance east of the African mainland.

[20] The wreckage was spotted off the coast of the town of Mitsamiouli, including a few bodies and large amounts of floating debris in the ocean.

[1] Another 22 bodies were recovered from Mafia Island in Tanzania during the second week of July 2009, and transferred to hospitals in Dar es Salaam.

[25][26] Due to the great depth of the recorders' current location, the French navy had announced that it would employ underwater robots for the recovery operation, which began in August 2009.

[32] The preliminary findings of the investigation pointed to pilot error as the cause of the accident, bringing objections from the Comoros and Yemeni authorities.

[38] The investigation determined that the accident was caused by the inappropriate actions of the crew that led to a stall from which the aircraft did not recover.

[12] The French Secretary of State for Transport Dominique Bussereau said that France had banned the plane from its territory several years prior, because "we believed it presented a certain number of irregularities in its technical equipment.

"[42] However, the Yemeni Transport Minister Khaled Ibrahim Alwazir declared the plane was in line with international standards and that "comprehensive inspection" had been undertaken in Yemen with experts from Airbus.

[43] They also disrupted Yemenia flights, protesting in French airports against the airline's safety record and preventing passengers from boarding or checking-in.