19 dead in Sicily plane crash
A Tunisian passenger plane crash-landed into the Mediterranean Sea today killing 19 people, a Palermo prosecutor said.
Twenty people survived, said Piero Grasso.
“Unfortunately the toll has gone up,” he said. ”There are 19 dead, and 20 survivors,” with apparently all 39 aboard accounted for, he said after heading to Palermo’s port, where the survivors were being taken off rescue boats.
The plane crash-landed off the Sicilian coast on a flight from Bari, Italy, to Djerba.
Of the survivors, nine were in serious condition, said Captain Giuseppe Averna, an official with the sea division of Italian border police.
``We can rule out terrorism,'' said Grasso at Palermo's port, where rescue boats were unloading survivors on stretchers.
He said the plane was forced to crash-land because of a “technical problem” that investigators were looking into.
