The 12-year-old believed to be the only survivor of an Indian Ocean plane crash was reunited with her father in Paris on Thursday.

Bahia Bakari was on a Yemeni Airbus 310 jet carrying 153 people when it crashed early Tuesday off the coast of the island nation of Comoros.

Bakari managed to survive the crash and clung to debris for more than 13 hours before rescue crews finally found her.

The other 152 people on the plane, including Bakari's mother, are believed to have died in the crash.

On Thursday, Bakari flew back to France with a government minister and other officials.

Bakari's father, Kassim Bakari, said his reunion with his daughter was "very powerful."

He said he asked her, "'How are you? Was the return trip OK?' ... We joked a little, the two of us."

Bakari and her mother left Paris Monday night to visit family in Comoros.

Kassim Bakari said he told his daughter that her mother was also recovering.

Several other family members came to the airport to welcome the Bakari back to France. She was then taken to a children's hospital in eastern Paris.

"In the midst of the mourning, there is Bahia. It is a miracle, it is an absolutely extraordinary battle for survival," France's government minister for cooperation, Alain Joyandet, said at a news conference at the airport.

Joyandet said Bakari told him about her experience.

"She says instructions were given to passengers and that then she felt something like electricity ... as if she had been a bit electrocuted," he said. "And suddenly there was this big sound. She found herself in the water -- and you know the rest."

Joyandet praised the girl for her strength and courage.

"It's an enormous message that she sends to the world ... almost nothing is impossible," he said. "We will do everything we can to help her."

While earlier reports said the girl was 14, CTV's London Bureau Chief Tom Kennedy said officials now say she is only 12.

As investigators probe what happened, Kennedy said one of the key issues is the air worthiness of the aircraft.

He said experts say there is a different safety standard for aircrafts used in the developed world.

Meanwhile, a 32-year-old mother of three from Ottawa, Ensumata Abdoulghani, is also believed to have been on board the plane.

The Comoros, located about 2,900 kilometres south of Yemen, is an archipelago of three main islands.

With files from The Associated Press