January 13, 2000
Web posted at: 2:57 p.m. EST (1957 GMT)

In this story: Refinery was destination Investigator dispatched from Canada RELATED STORIES, SITES

TRIPOLI, Libya -- A search is under way off the Libyan coast for survivors of the crash of a twin-engine plane with 41 people on board, mostly Libyan and British oil workers. A British Foreign Office spokesman said 17 people had been killed, 18 survived and six were still missing.

The plane, which belongs to Avisto AG air services, a Swiss company based in Zurich, went down Thursday afternoon. It was carrying 38 passengers and three crew and later sank.

	AUDIO
Investigator Daniel Knecht comments on the crash 361K/33 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

Refinery was destination

Hugo Schittenhelm, a Swiss Transportation Ministry spokesman, said the plane had taken off from Tripoli and was flying east to an oil refinery at Marsa el-Brega, halfway along Libya's Mediterranean coast.

Shortly before reaching the airport, the pilot reported that both engines had stopped working and he was going to try to make an emergency landing on the water.

"The plane hit the water just off the Libyan coast and sank," said Schittenhelm. "A search for survivors and for the aircraft is under way. Nothing can yet be said about the exact number of victims."

Investigator dispatched from Canada

The Swiss air accident investigation bureau, which confirmed the crash, said it would send an expert to Libya on Friday to investigate.

The investigator is flying from Ottawa, where he has been working on the probe into the 1998 crash of a Swiss airplane off the Canadian coast in which 229 people died.

In a statement, Avisto said the plane was leased by the Sirte Oil Company, headquartered in Marsa el-Brega, to ferry workers to and from its oil platforms.

A spokesman for Avisto later told Swiss radio that 16 of those on board were Libyans, 13 were British, two were Canadian, three were from India, three from Croatia, three from the Philippines and one from Pakistan.

The aircraft was built by Shorts, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, part of Canada's Bombardier Inc.

Thursday's crash was the second involving a Swiss-owned plane since Monday, when a Crossair plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Zurich. Ten people died in that crash.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.