Bahia Bakari, sole survivor of the Yemenia plane crash in 2009, May 9, 2022 (AFP / Thomas SAMSON)
It’s a “hard story to tell” despite “the habit of recent years”. The sole survivor of the crash which left 152 dead in 2009 off the coast of the Comoros testified again on Monday at the appeal trial of the company Yemenia Airways, tried for homicide and involuntary injuries.
At the bar, her black hair pulled into a bun reveals a thick pair of golden earrings. Bahia Bakari, 27, launches into the story of the night of the accident which she miraculously survived.
That day, “my mother wore beautiful gold earrings. She told me that she would lend them to me for the wedding,” relates the young woman in a trembling voice.
On June 29, 2009, Bahia was 12 years old when she left Parisian Roissy airport with her mother to attend her grandfather’s wedding in the Comoros. After a first stopover in Marseille, in the south-east of France, passengers change planes in Sanaa, Yemen.
This second aircraft, an Airbus A310, was “smaller and older”, she recalls, without its condition worrying her, with the exception of “the smell of toilets” and “midges” present on board.
The survivor of the Yemenia Airways crash, Bahia Bakari (left), photographed on May 9, 2022 at the Paris Criminal Court (AFP / Thomas SAMSON)
The flight takes place peacefully, it is night. Approaching Moroni, the capital of the Comoros, Bahia Bakari said he felt “turbulence” and “found it strange”. The other passengers did not react.
“Suddenly, I feel electrified. I can no longer move. And then, black hole,” she continues.
Crowded on the benches, dozens of civil parties returned to listen to him. Among them, a woman, whose cries of pain break the silence of the room, as Bahia’s story continues.
Bahia Bakari regains consciousness in the water. “I see that there are three pieces of plane debris. I hold on to one of them,” explains the young woman, who then says she is “very lucid about the situation.”
– “Really alone” –
“I become aware that women are calling for help in Comorian. I start calling for help too” then she falls asleep “exhausted”. When he wakes up, there are no more voices, but in the distance “the silhouette of one of the islands”. “I was really alone at that time.”
On the morning of June 30, the sea was particularly rough. To hold on, the young girl convinces herself that she is the only one who found herself in the water, that her mother is waiting for her on dry land.
Debris of the Yemenia company plane, which crashed at sea in 2009 off the Comoros, September 16, 2009 (AFP / Ibrahim YOUSSOUF)
Picked up by a boat, Bahia was taken to Moroni hospital. It was there that a psychologist told her that she was “the only one we found” and “that we wouldn’t find anyone again”.
Returning to France on July 2, she was hospitalized for around twenty days to treat fractures to her left eye, collarbone, pelvis, burns to her feet and a pneumothorax.
“I was very close to my mother, she was my best friend,” confides the young woman, whose voice breaks for the first time.
“You have an inhuman threshold of tolerance, an absolutely incredible strength to live,” encourages the president of the court Sylvie Madec. “It’s also hard for us. We are not just judges.”
The hearing is briefly suspended.
Now married, Bahia says she is “thriving”, despite a trauma which “forced her to grow up more quickly than other children”.
“Overall, we are doing well,” she reassures, referring to her three little brothers and sisters, as well as her father. “I don’t have bad nights anymore.”
The various expert assessments carried out since the crash concluded that the accident was due to a series of piloting errors, ruling out the hypothesis of a missile, a technical failure of the plane and lightning.
Absent at first instance, a representative of the airline was heard by the Court of Appeal on March 7. He presented his condolences to the families of the victims and praised the “great dignity” of Bahia Bakari.