MORONI - Witnesses said they saw a Yemenia airline Airbus jet try to make a landing at Moroni airport before it crashed in the sea early Tuesday with 153 people aboard.

The witnesses, including a former defence minister and a former head of civil aviation in the Comoros, spoke of their astonishment as they saw the A310 jet approach the airport and then disappear.

"I saw the plane approach and then go away again, I just could not understand it," said former defence minister Houmed Msaidie, who went to Moroni-Hahaya airport to pick up his mother in law.

"It looked to me as though the plane was having difficulties landing," said Mohamed Yahya, former director of Comoros civil aviation department. Yahya said the jet's engines were making a noise as though it was in difficulty.

"I saw the plane trying to land. I went into the terminal to meet my mother, but there was no plane," Moussa Boina, another witness, told AFP