Yemeni officials brushed aside the concerns, saying "that if their planes didn't meet standards they wouldn't put their crew on it," member Zalifa Youssouf told The Associated Press by telephone Friday. Yemeni officials issued no public statement on the group's claims Friday.

Ships continued to search for survivors, bodies and wreckage from Yemenia Flight 626, which went down in heavy winds off the coast of the Comoros islands. Hopes of finding anyone alive in the choppy seas were dim.

A 12-year-old girl was rescued after clinging to floating wreckage for more than 13 hours, suffering from hypothermia, a fractured collarbone and widespread bruises to her face, elbow and foot. Her mother was presumed dead.

Bahia Bakari returned to France aboard a French government plane on Thursday and was hospitalized in Paris.

"She is very lucid, very conscious (and) I was able to speak with her," President Nicolas Sarkozy told RTL radio after visiting her.

Sarkozy named a former French ambassador to Sudan, Christine Robichon, as an ambassador charged with liaising between families and international authorities managing the search and investigation regarding the Comoros crash.

The French government also fended off criticism that it was not doing as much for the families of the Comoros crash victims as it did for an Air France flight that crashed en route from Brazil to Paris last month.