One of the black box recorders from the Yemeni Air jet plane that crashed off the Comoros Islands has been found.

Flight IY626 crashed as it was getting ready to land on Grand Comore on 30 June 2009.

A French Government spokesperson confirmed the electronic recorder from the Airbus A310-300 had been found.

“The black box’s signal was located on Tuesday 30 June at 4.30pm local time by an aerial patrol, 40km [25 miles] from Grande Comore,” said a government spokesman.

It is thought 152 people died in the crash.

A French boat will recover the black box, which should give clues as to why the flight went down, according to a report in UK newspaper The Telegraph.