Tuninter Flight 1153

Tuninter Flight 1153 was a scheduled international passenger flight flown by Tuninter Airlines flight from Bari International Airport in Italy, to Djerba-Zarzis Airport on the Tunisian island of Djerba. On 6 August 2005, the Tuninter ATR 72 ditched into the Mediterranean Sea about 18 miles (29 km) from the city of Palermo. Sixteen of the 39 people on board died. The accident resulted from fuel exhaustion due to the installation of fuel quantity indicators designed for the ATR 42 in the larger ATR 72. It was also Tuninter's first fatal accident in the 14-year history of the company.

The flight was under the command of 45-year-old Captain Chafik al-Gharbi (Arabic: شفيق الغربي), a skilled and experienced pilot with a total of 7,182 flight hours. The co-pilot, 28-year-old Ali Kebaier Lassoued (علي كبيّر لسود, also known as Ali Kebaier al-Aswad), had logged 2,431 flight hours. Both the captain and co-pilot were well-acquainted with the ATR 72, having accrued 5,582 hours and 2,130 hours in it, respectively.

The aircraft, an ATR 72–202, had its fuel quantity indicator (FQI) replaced the night before the flight, but technicians inadvertently installed an FQI designed for the ATR 42, a similar but smaller airplane with smaller fuel tanks. Ground crews and the flight engineer, relying on the incorrect readings from the newly installed FQI, loaded the aircraft with an inadequate amount of fuel for the flight.

On the flight from Bari to Djerba, both engines cut out in mid-flight. The aircraft's right engine failed at 23,000 feet (7,000 metres). The aircraft began to descend to 17,000 feet, but 100 seconds after the right engine failure, the left engine also failed at 21,900 feet (6,700 metres). The flight crew did not detect the fuel exhaustion because the incorrectly-installed ATR 42 gauge indicated an adequate amount of fuel in the tanks, even after all of the usable fuel had been consumed. After the engine failure, the captain requested an emergency landing in Palermo, Sicily. The crew tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to restart the engines as they navigated to Palermo. The ATR glided for 16 minutes, but was unable to reach the runway and the plane was forced to ditch into the sea, 23 nautical miles (43 kilometres; 26 miles) northeast of Palermo International Airport at a speed of 145 mph (126 kn; 65 m/s; 233 km/h). The aircraft broke into three sections upon impact.

The entire aircraft floated for some time after the crash, but only the central fuselage and the wings remained floating. Patrol boats from Palermo arrived 46 minutes after the ditching and began the rescue and recovery.

The aircraft involved, manufactured in 1991, was a 14-year-old twin-engine turboprop ATR 72-500 registered as TS-LBB with serial number 258. The aircraft was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW124B engines.

One of the four crew members died—a flight attendant—and 15 out of the 35 passengers died. The engineer who died was not a part of the flight crew, but had been called to the flight deck by the pilot and copilot after both engines failed; because he was not officially part of the crew, his death was accounted for as a passenger death. The flight's other flight attendants survived. All of the paying passengers were Italian, while the crew and the engineer were Tunisian. Autopsies indicated that many of the dead succumbed to the impact. Autopsies established that eight passengers who received injuries during the impact were unable to escape from the aircraft due to their injuries and drowned. Most of the survivors were seated in the rear of the ATR 72, while most of the passengers who died were in the front. Three dead passengers, including the engineer who tried to help the plane's crew, were found on the seabed. The ANSV stated that the cause of death of these passengers was difficult to determine.

The investigation revealed several factors leading to the crash. First, the investigation examined how the incorrect fuel quantity indicator (FQI) came to be installed on the plane.