"A child was found alive. He is now on a rescuers' boat," said Ben Imani, a doctor at Moroni's main hospital told AFP.

A Comoros Red Cross official confirmed the rescue.

"We have all that is needed — drips, equipment — to assist the child immediately," said Al fachad Salim.

The child is apparently so far the only survivor of the crash.

Meanwhile, activists in the French city of Marseille said on Tuesday that passengers are packed in like cattle on flights between Yemen and the Comoros on planes that fail to meet safety criteria.

The campaign group called "SOS voyage aux Comores" (SOS Comoros Travel) called on French authorities to act to stop a repeat of the crash near the Indian Ocean Comoran islands of a Yemenia jet with 153 people on board.

"Flights between Sanaa (in Yemen) and Moroni (in the Comoros) are carried out by cowboy operators," spokesperson Farid Soilihi told AFP at the airport in the southern French city which has 80 000 Comoran residents.

"They treat people like cattle, they pile them in, they don't respect timetables, there are always technical problems," he said.

He added that his group had last year held a protest march at Marseille airport to denounce conditions on these flights.

The Yemenia flight that crashed started in a Paris airport on Monday before stopping off in Marseille and then on to Sanaa.

There passengers changed to an Airbus A310 and departed for the Comoros via Djibouti. The twin engine plane crashed early Tuesday off the Comoros islands.

France's transport minister said that French inspectors had noted numerous faults on the Yemenia jet that crashed and the company was being closely monitored by EU authorities.

The plane came down in rough seas as it was approaching Comoros, officials said.

AFP