Tue, Aug 09, 2005 page6

• Plane passengers had been concerned about engine noise

  FOREBODING Before the ill-fated Tunisia-bound flight even got off the ground, people aboard the plane were worried that something was amiss

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  Survivors of a weekend plane crash off the coast of Sicily in which at least 13 people died have said they were so concerned about noise from the engines during the flight that a passenger got up to ask the captain what was going on.

  Twenty-three people out of 39 aboard, including the pilot and co-pilot, survived after both engines on the twin-prop plane failed and the aircraft was forced to ditch in the Mediterranean. Three people are still missing, thought to be trapped in the submerged fuselage, and the plane's flight recorder has yet to be recovered.

  According to passengers, they were uneasy about the condition of the turbo-prop plane operated by Tuninter, an affiliate of Tunisair, from the minute it rose into the air. One woman said she had a sense of foreboding while the aircraft was still on the ground because the pilot had trouble starting one of the engines. One of the propellers was also stuck and was moving slowly but then got going properly.

  "I was worried but I'm a nervous flyer and I never really thought anything would happen," she said. She and her 11-year-old daughter survived the crash but her husband died.

  Roberto Fusco, who was on board the plane with his girlfriend, said: "During the flight we heard these strange noises. They were so worrying that one of the passengers, a big man with a flowered shirt, got up and went to the pilots' cabin to ask the captain what was going on. We knew something wasn't right from the beginning."

  The 25-year-old passenger told what happened as the plane, which was flying from the Italian town of Bari to the Tunisian resort of Djerba, got into difficulties and began to lose altitude.

  "At a certain point the right engine failed and the propeller stopped and they said there was an emergency," he said.

  "The plane started to lose power and height. Then the other engine stalled and there was panic. The cabin crew didn't speak Italian very well but they told us to put on our lifejackets. Then there was a terrible impact."

  His girlfriend, Ilaria Lo Bosco, 23, said: "Roberto and I had our arms around each other. Other people were shouting and crying. I saw a woman holding her baby tightly, tightly to her chest. Then we were in the water. Roberto saved me. He undid my seatbelt and got us out."

  She said she saw the baby, who she had been playing with during the flight, being dragged from his mother's arms by the force of the impact into the sea.

  Another survivor Gianluca La Forgia described darkness and a rush of cold water up to his neck as the fuselage split open. He said the experience was "like being in a film."

  He and his girlfriend, Annalisa Susca, clung to one of the wings of the wrecked plane as they awaited rescue.

  "We stayed on it for more than an hour but it wasn't easy because the waves were washing over us," she said.
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