HIJACKED JETLINER CRASHES IN OCEAN : AT LEAST 55 KILLED OFF EAST AFRICA.

Byline: Associated Press 

A hijacked Ethiopian airliner carrying 175 people ran out of fuel and crashed Saturday just off a beach on the Comoros Islands, killing at least 55 people. Island residents risked the rough waters of the Indian Ocean to search for victims.

At least 54 people survived the Ethiopian Airlines crash on the island nation off Mozambique in east Africa, local officials and news reports said.

The Italian embassy confirmed 55 people dead and at least 16 injured. Witness reports put the death toll at more than 100.

Rescue efforts were hindered by rough seas, the risk of shark attacks and nightfall, but radio reports said islanders managed to rescue some people by floating them to shore on aircraft wreckage.

The Boeing 767 crashed around midday near the Galawa Beach Hotel, a tropical resort 25 miles north of the capital, Moroni, on the main island of Grande Comore.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Christopher Bush told the AP there were ``several American citizens'' aboard.

A military diver went into the fuselage in the early evening. ``He estimated 60 to 80 passengers were still strapped in their chairs and had drowned,'' hotel manager Bruce Thomson told The Associated Press.

Thomson said police and military searchers retrieved 50 bodies from the water.

Another hotel official, Frederick Chretien, said several agencies were helping in the rescue effort.

``We've got the national police, the national gendarmerie. We've got the French police helping as well. We've got the army,'' he said.

Eleven hijackers commandeered Flight 961 shortly after it took off from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Abbaba, the Ethiopian News Agency reported.

The BBC quoted an unidentified Ethiopian Airlines official as saying the hijackers were transit passengers who initially had traveled from Bombay, India.

The hijackers demanded the pilot take them to Australia, but didn't believe him when he said there wasn't enough fuel, the agency reported. The motive for the hijacking wasn't immediately clear. The plane got as far as Moroni and tried for a crash landing.

``There was a loud noise as it hit the water. Witnesses say that it was flying very low over the water and one wing touched into the water and then the plane crashed,'' hotel receptionist Natalie Bier told the BBC.

``Straight after that everybody was running and we were getting the boats out, going to try and rescue any survivors we could.''

Bier said most of the survivors they found were critically injured.

``We also recovered a lot of people who didn't make it, who died on the boat or at the beach,'' Bier said.

Thomson said survivors told him two hijackers with bombs were on the plane and a third was apparently in the hold. The explosives were never detonated, the passengers said, and the plane ran out of fuel while the pilot negotiated with the hijackers.

The wreckage was in three pieces spread across 200 yards on shore and in the water.

Another hotel worker told Radio France International that islanders floated the survivors to shore on pieces of wreckage or small boats.

``Fortunately, we had about 15 vacationing French doctors who gave a hand, who cared for those they could, right there on the beach,'' he said.

French and Ethiopian planes, both carrying medical staff and equipment, arrived on the island late Saturday and the doctors went to the hospital in Moroni to attend to the survivors, said Mohammed Sharly, chief air traffic controller at Moroni's airport.

The plane was destined for Abidjan in the Ivory Coast after stops in Nairobi, Kenya; Brazzaville, Congo; and Lagos, Nigeria.

The plane was carrying 163 passengers and 12 crew members, Ethiopian Airlines said. It sent a team to Moroni but will not release a passenger list until Sunday.

The BBC reported from Addis Ababa that air traffic controllers there monitored the hijackers' frantic demands for 25 minutes. Survivors reported the hijackers were speaking the Ethiopian language Amharic as well as some French and English, the BBC said.

Bush, the U.S. spokesman, said a team of U.S. officials, including an FBI agent, is being sent to the site because the ``hijacking appears to be air piracy, and that is a crime under U.S. law. There were American citizens on board.''

There were eight Israelis and eight Britons on the flight. Italy reported three Italians survived and said Italy's ambassador to Ethiopia was not on the flight, as had previously been reported.

The pilot and a hijacker were among the survivors, according to various reports.

The BBC said two hijackers survived the crash and have been arrested.

South Korean diplomat Lee Hun-jong, assigned to the embassy in Kenya, was killed in the crash, South Korea said.

``President Negaso Gidada has expressed his profound grief to those who died in the air disaster,'' Ethiopian radio said.

The Comoros Islands, a volcanic, coral archipelago, became independent from France in 1978.

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Map: Crash site of hijacked plane

New York Times