ROME - A Tunisair jet carrying 35 passengers crashed into the sea off the Sicilian coast Saturday while trying to make an emergency landing because of engine trouble, officials said.

Rescuers were heading to the scene eight miles off the coast near Palermo as news reports said people were spotted standing on the plane's wings.

"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 Associated Press.

The jet left Bari and was on its way to Tunisia when it went down, Vito De Blasi, a Palermo airport tower official, told the AP. Tunisair is the national airline of Tunisia.

"It landed in the sea," he said.

ENAV spokesman Alberto Pellegrino told TG24 television that rescuers were on their way to the craft. The network also said the coast guard spotted two people standing on a wing of the ATR-72 and waving for help.

lets hope all of them got out safely...

It seems it was an ATR-42 flying for Tuninter, the charter branch of Tunisair. It was flight 1153 from Bari (Italy) to Djerba (Tunisia). The plane ditched at 1555 local, 30 km off the coast. There were 39 pax and 3 crew members. So far 24 people have been rescued.

Source : http://fr.bluewin.ch/infos/index.php/faits...20050806:brf078

Correction it seems it was ATR-72 with 35 pax and 4 crew members. It is not yet know how many casualties there is but numbers are between 5 and 11.

Why does the media keep calling it a jet? An ATR-72 is NOT a jet!

A kink in English http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4127636.stm

Slideshow- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4128392.stm

I can't help but think a double engine failure is a fairly rare event during normal operations. It makes me think about another accident that happened in the area, the plane was a Short 360 flying off the coast of Lybia. The crew was talking about other things for the whole flight and didn't notice the ice building up and never turned the engine anti-ice and igniters on. Finally both engines flamed out and the plane ditched before any restart was attempted.

Look at the photo with the dead man.
R.I.P

Thats a Horrible news.. i only knew that this morning and well.. i'm sorry for what happened? the reports say its an ATR aircraft what does it look like?
:cry:

R.I.P to those poor people that died, i hope any survivors get better.

14 Passengers are confirmed dead. 5 are still missing. The registration of the ATR-72 was TS-LBB.
May they rest in peace...

The cause of this is looking to be shoddy maintenance, The night before the accident in Tunis, an ATR-42 fuel gauge was fitted to this ATR-72 meaning the crew were not aware of their actual fuel status and ATR themselves along with the Italian safety board are in agreement that this lead to the fuel starvation and subsequent engine failures.

http://www.todo-aviones.com.ar/europa/atr4...42_72/atr72.jpg

Flew on ATR 72 and 42 last month.42 was great, 72 has good safety record yet somehow I felt quite nervous throughout the flight, they shake, they jolt, not pleasant at all!!!

The Italian accident investigation board ANSV reported that the ill-fated ATR-72 that crashed off Sicily in August had the Fuel Quantity Indicator (FQI) of an ATR-42 installed on the flightdeck. The normal operation of the FQI is to processes the signal coming from the capacitance probes installed in the tanks with an algorithm typical for each aircraft, depending on tank shape, size and number of probes installed. The indications of the amount of fuel on board the airplane were thus unreliable. The ANSV recommended that the European Aviation Safety Agency, should require an ATR-72 and ATR-42 fleet inspection in order to verify the installation of the applicable Fuel Quantity Indicator, and should consider the possibility to mandate a modification of the Fuel Quantity Indicator installation in order to prevent any incorrect fitting. (ANSV)

What do i need to get this to work?