[A 13-year-old girl treading black ocean waters for 13 hours, screams of the drowning echoing around her, shark fins slicing closer.] 😱
Yemenia Flight 626, a Boeing 737 en route from Yemen's capital Sana'a to Comoros, plummeted into the Indian Ocean just after midnight on June 30, 2009. The plane, overweight and poorly maintained, stalled during a risky "go-around" maneuver amid heavy rain and poor visibility near Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport. It nosedived from 6,000 feet, breaking apart on impact—152 souls lost, including Bahia Bakari's mother, who had saved to send her daughter to school in Paris via this connecting flight.
Bahia, the only survivor, awoke submerged in fuel-slicked darkness at 1:47 a.m., coughing seawater, her life vest barely keeping her afloat amid floating fuselage. Waves towered 10 feet high, slamming her against debris, skin lacerated and pruned from 13 hours' exposure. "I was calling my mother, but she didn't answer," Bahia later told reporters, her voice hollow. Screams pierced the night—fellow passengers gasping final pleas before silence swallowed them. She prayed silently, gripping a chunk of cabin roof, as dorsal fins cut through the inky swells just yards away. "I thought the sharks would eat me," she recounted to French rescuers.
No one believed anyone could survive. Comoran and French helicopters scanned for hours, spotting nothing in the storm. By dawn on July 1, Bahia, hypothermic and near death, spotted a rescue ship. French navy officer David Bissaro hauled her aboard the frigate Nivôse—body temperature at 35°C (95°F), pulse faint, lips blue from hypothermia. "She was like a ghost, whispering in Arabic," Bissaro said. Medevaced to Mayotte then Paris, doctors marveled: no major injuries beyond cuts, dehydration, and trauma.
The aftermath shook aviation. Investigations blamed pilot error, Yemenia's lax maintenance, and overloaded fuel—echoing prior crashes. Bahia, hailed "Miracle Girl," faced survivor's guilt. In her 2010 memoir, "My 13 Hours," she wrote: "The ocean took my family, but it couldn't take my will." Therapy and family support rebuilt her; today, she advocates for child trauma awareness in France, her spirit forged in salt and terror.
Horror etched forever: the girl who outlived hell's silent hunters. 🌊
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