Investigators Probe Sicily Crash

Search Continues For Three Missing Passengers, 13 Confirmed Dead

(CBS/AP) 

He said an analysis of the fuel put in the plane's tanks in Bari, on Italy's Adriatic coast, before takeoff did not detect impurities. Another possibility for the engines failing was a loss of fuel, he said, while other officials spoke of a possible mechanical problem feeding the fuel to the engines.

"All hypotheses are open, except that of sabotage," he said listing a technical breakdown, weather factors, structural defects, operational problems and human error as possibilities.

Thirteen bodies had been recovered by Sunday afternoon and were being identified by relatives flown in from Bari. They were to be sent home after coroners finished autopsies.

Teams were searching by air and sea for the bodies of two or three people. One official said recovering the bodies might be difficult because they could be trapped inside part of the plane that was still submerged: both the tail and the nose sank after impact.

Emergency crews also hadn't found the flight data recorder, said Gaspare Prestifilippo, a division chief at the Palermo port.

The aircraft, carrying 34 passengers and five crew members, went down Saturday 10 miles off Sicily's Cape Gallo on the island's north coast.

The pilot contacted aviation officials at 3:24 p.m. reporting engine trouble and asked to make an emergency landing in Palermo. At 3:40 p.m. he said he was ditching the plane in the sea because he could not reach the airstrip, Tuninter director Tlili Mohamed Ali said in Tunis.

The flight had departed from Bari, Italy, for the Tunisian resort of Djerba, popular with Italian vacationers.

Of the 23 survivors, 16 were treated at the Civic Hospital, but none was in a life-threatening condition, said Dr. Mario Re, head of the intensive care unit.

Overnight, authorities hauled the mangled fuselage out of the sea, its two wings and engines intact.