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| Tuninter ATR-72 TS-LBB, the aircraft involved in today's accident, is seen at Malta in this August, 2004 file photo. (Gordon Zammit/View Full Size) |
ROME - A Tunisian passenger plane carrying 39 people crash-landed in the Mediterranean Sea off Sicily on Saturday while trying to make an emergency landing because of engine trouble, and 19 people were killed, officials said.
Palermo Prosecutor Piero Grasso told The Associated Press that 20 people survived and were being taken off rescue boats on stretchers at Palermo's port. Some survivors were clinging to the plane's wings when rescuers arrived, media reports said.
"Unfortunately, the toll has gone up," Grasso said. "There are 19 dead, and 20 survivors."
He said the plane was forced to make a water landing about eight miles off Sicily because of a "technical problem" that was being investigated.
"We can rule out terrorism," Grasso said.
The plane left Bari, Italy, on its way to Djerba, Tunisia. It was operated by Tuninter, an affiliate of Tunisair, the national airline of Tunisia. Tuninter said it had no immediate word on victims.
"The plane had engine problems and was trying to (emergency) land in Palermo and had to land in the sea," Nicoletta Tommessile, a spokeswoman for Italy's air safety agency, ENAV, told the AP.
The plane contacted the Rome airport tower officials at 3:24 p.m. to report engine trouble and say it would have to land at Palermo's airport. Sixteen minutes later, the plane's crew told tower officials: "We're ditching in the sea," Tommessile said.
The ATR-72 is a twin-propeller plane built in France. It has a two-person crew and seats up to 74 passengers. Its maiden flight was in 1988.
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