ARUSHA, Tanzania (AP) – Three more bodies were found off Tanzania yesterday, bringing the total to 16, as the French navy arrived to assist in the search for wreckage and remains from a plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Only one of the 153 people on board Yemenia Airways Flight 626, 12-year-old Bahia Bakari, survived the June 30 crash off the coast of Comoros.

The girl underwent facial surgery at the Armand-Trousseau Hospital in Paris and was listed in satisfactory condition, the hospital said yesterday.

Bahia survived at sea for up to 13 hours, clinging to debris. Officials said she suffered from hypothermia, a fractured collarbone and bruises to her face, elbow and foot.

Her mother was also on the plane and is presumed dead.

Strong ocean currents are believed to have carried debris from the plane and some bodies over 500 miles (800 kilometres) north-west to the shores of Tanzania.

Manzie Mangochie, the district commissioner for Tanzania’s Mafia Island, said the French navy arrived with inflatable boats and a helicopter to help with the search.

Thirteen bodies had been recovered in Tanzania by Wednesday, along with debris thought to be from an Airbus plane, but the bodies have not been formally identified.

Mangochie said three more were recovered yesterday.

The French are assisting Tanzanian officials with record keeping and identification of the bodies.

Authorities in Kenya are also helping in the search after Irish tourist Donnacha Sahey found debris with Arabic and English inscriptions reading “push to open” and “no smoking in the toilet” that appeared to have come from a plane.

Sahey alerted the Kenyan authorities and the head of Mombasa Marine Park, Arthur Tuda, said park wardens would be on the lookout for more debris washing up.

Teams from the French aviation investigation agency BEA and the French navy are also still co-ordinating the search for the plane’s black boxes off the Comoran coast.

Investigators have reportedly concluded that the black boxes – the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders – lie in waters too deep for divers. They are awaiting specialised robots that can operate underwater, which are due to arrive Sunday in the Comoros.

The flight originated in Paris and was heading to the Comoros via Yemen. Protesters in France have accused the airline of using good planes on European routes and worse ones on the leg from Yemen to the Comoros.