The director of the Yemenia Airways office in Moroni, Mohammad al Soumairi, also indicated that bad weather might be one of the causes of the crash.

"The weather was bad, with strong winds and high seas...There may be other factors," Soumairi said.

However, the website quoted France Meteo, as saying that weather conditions were "not at all bad."

It was reported that the passengers had embarked on a Yemenia A330 flight from Roissy on Monday and, after a stop in Marseille, continued their journey to Sanaa, where they changed their flight to board the A310, which crashed off the Comoros.

Besides 66 French nationals, there were also nationals from Canada, Comoros, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, the Philippines and Yemen on the plane, a Yemeni aviation official said.

This has been the second air crash off the Comoros since Nov. 23, 1996, when a hijacked Boeing 767 of the Ethiopian Airlines crashed off the Comoros, killing 125 of the 175 passengers on board.

This is also the second Airbus aircraft which crashed in one month.

On June 1, an Airbus A330 plane crashed into the Atlantic sea three and a half hours after it took off from Rio de Janeiro, killing all of the 228 people on board, including a crew of 12.