06/08/2005 20:47  - (SA)  

Rome - A Tunisian airliner attempting an emergency landing in Sicily crash-landed off the coast and 19 of the 39 people on board were killed, Italian officials said.

Some of the 20 survivors had clung to the wings as rescuers rushed to their aid, Italian news reports said.

The pilot contacted Rome airport aviation officials at 13:24 GMT reporting engine trouble and asked permission to make an emergency landing in Palermo, said Nicoletta Tommessile, a spokesperson for ENAV, Italy's air safety agency.

Sixteen minutes later, the pilot told tower officials: "We're ditching in the sea," she said.

Tunisian officials said all of the passengers were Italian, and TG24 television said most of them were from Puglia, the region in the "heel" of the Italian peninsula.

"There are 19 dead, and 20 survivors" with apparently all 39 aboard accounted for, Palermo Prosecutor Piero Grasso said after heading to Palermo's port, where the survivors on stretchers were being taken off rescue boats.

Nine of the survivors were in serious condition, said Capt Giuseppe Averna, an official with the sea division of Italian border police.

 The flight operated by Tuninter, an affiliate of Tunisair, was flying from Bari, Italy, to the Tunisian resort of Djerba when it went down about 16 kilometres off the coast of Palermo, Sicily's capital.

"We can rule out terrorism," Grasso told reporters at Palermo's port.

Palermo fire official Giovanni Saccone said when rescuers arrived, the Tuninter ATR-72 was still floating in the sea, but the tail broke off hours after the impact and fire department divers were trying to keep the wreckage afloat.

"The aeroplane was controlled until it made contact with the water," ENAV spokesperson Adalberto Pellegrino told SKY TG24.

SKY TG24 said some of the survivors were spotted clinging to the wings as they awaited rescue by coast guard boats.

Emergency room doctor Giuseppe Pumilia at Palermo's Villa Sofia hospital, where five survivors were taken, said one of them is a young girl. Many of the survivors were reported to be in shock.