(ANSA) - A lack of fuel caused last month's crash of a Tuninter ATR-72 aircraft which killed 16 people, Italy's national agency for air transport safety (ANSV) has concluded.
In a report sent to its European counterpart EASA, the agency said the twin-engine turboprop aircraft did not take on sufficient fuel before leaving Bari because of a faulty fuel gage.
According to the ANSV report, the day before the August 6 crash the fuel gage was replaced in Tunisia with one designed for an ATR-42 model, which is similar to the ATR-72 but has smaller fuel tanks.
The same conclusions were reached by the aircraft's Italo-French manufacturer, ANSA has learned. Based on the ANSV report, Italy's civil aviation agency ENAC has suspended Tuninter's authorisation to operate in Italy.
Tuninter ATR-72 was on a flight from the southeastern Italian city of Bari to the Tunisian resort island of Djerba when both its engine's cut off as it approached Sicily. The plane was carrying 34 holidaymakers and a crew of five. Thanks to the ability of the pilot the plane made a crash landing in the sea which allowed 23 people to survive.
Prosecutors in Bari, who are heading an probe into the causes of the crash, said on Wednesday that they were considering bringing criminal charges against Tunisian authorities for failure to control the repairs on the fuel gage.
Tunisian aviation authorities apparently also did not follow protocol and inform Bari airport about the maintenance carried out on the aircraft. Prosecutors in Palermo, who are carrying out a parallel
probe into the crash, had from the start suspected that the ATR-72 ran out of fuel.
This because so little kerosene was found in the plane's tanks, which were intact, and on the water at the crash site.
