Paris, France

The case of the 2009 accident of a Yemenia Airways flight that killed 152 people, but miraculously left a 12-year-old girl alive began on Monday in a French court.

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Bahia Bakari, now 25, testified in the French trial against the airline about the harrowing minutes prior to her plummet into the ocean and the miraculous rescue.

Recalling the terrifying ordeal Bakari told the court that she "didn't see how I was going to get through this," adding that she spent hours in the water holding on to a piece of debris, with "the taste of jet fuel" in her mouth.

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Previously too in interviews and in her own book the sole survivor had recalled "turbulence" during the flight's approach, before feeling something like an electric shock and then blacking out, only to wake up in the sea.

She flew with her mother from Paris to Comoros for her grandfather's wedding on June 29, 2009, changing aircraft in Sanaa, Yemen, for the final part of the journey.

"It was a smaller plane, there were flies inside and it smelled strongly like a bathroom," she added, adding that "the flight went normally" until the landing descent began.

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Before a psychologist at the hospital told her she was the sole survivor, she was certain "that I was the only one who fell" and that the other passengers had landed safely.

Her voice breaking Bakari remarked,  with tears streaming for the first time throughout her testimony, "The hardest thing for me has been dealing with the grief for my mother, I was very close to her."

After departure from Sanaa airport on June 29, 2009, aircraft Yemenia 626 was on its way to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros islands which is located between Mozambique and Madagascar.

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However, instead of landing safely, the Airbus A310 plunged into the Indian Ocean with its engines running at full power shortly before 11:00 pm, killing everyone on board save Bahia Bakari.

The Yemeni national airline faces a maximum penalty of 225,000 euros ($240,000) for involuntary homicide and injuries in a four-week trial.

(With inputs from agencies)

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