EgyptAir jet crashes in Tunisia; 18 dead

An official inspects luggage at the site.

TUNIS, Tunisia (CNN) -- An EgyptAir jet crashed on a hillside outside Tunisia's capital Tuesday as the pilot attempted to make an emergency landing, killing at least 18 people, a government official said.

At least 25 injured passengers were evacuated to hospitals, Tunisian Communications Agency official Oussama Romdhani told CNN. All 64 passengers and crew on board the Cairo-to-Tunis flight have been accounted for.

The Boeing 737-500's landing gear had failed to open during the approach into Tunis-Carthage airport and the pilot had made another circuit before attempting a fresh landing when the plane crashed, airport officials said.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to assist in the investigation. NTSB officials and others from the Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing and General Electric Engines are part of the team.

The incident came within hours of a separate air disaster in which a China Northern Airlines plane with 112 people on board crashed into the sea off the coast of the city of Dalian in Liaoning province. (Full story)

The EgyptAir pilot survived, but the co-pilot and several other crew members died, said Mahdi Fattallah, the Egyptian ambassador in Tunis.

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The aircraft was on a hill in the area of a park about six kilometers (four miles) from the airport and black smoke was seen rising from the site, The Associated Press reported. The site is in a remote, hilly area in Nahli, in the northern part of the capital.

Blankets covered the dead, surrounded by luggage and personal belongings strewn among the rocks and bushes. A bunch of plastic flowers protruded intact from a woman's bag.

The control tower lost contact with the plane a few seconds before the incident, just after the pilot sent out a distress call. As soon as contact was lost, emergency vehicles rushed to the area.

Weather was foggy and rainy at the time, with sandstorms blowing in from the Sahara Desert.

Mohammed Amin Abdelaziz, an Egyptian chief steward for EgyptAir, survived the crash.

The incident is the second disaster to hit EgyptAir in the past three years. An EgyptAir Boeing 767 aircraft crashed off the coast of Massachusetts on October 31, 1999, killing all 217 aboard.

The NTSB recently blamed the crash on the actions of the co-pilot, but it stopped short of saying Gameel Al-Batouti intentionally crashed the plane in a suicide mission, as had widely been speculated.

EgyptAir has 24 Airbus aircraft and 19 Boeing aircraft.

The Boeing 737 is the most widely used aircraft in the world. The 737-500 series was launched in May 1987.