Wednesday August 10, 2005 3:46 AM

ROME (AP) - The pilot of a Tunisian charter plane that crashed off the coast of Sicily and the driver of the refueling truck that serviced the plane before takeoff have been placed under investigation, news reports said Tuesday.

Thirteen people were killed in Saturday’s crash of the Tuninter ATR-72 and 23 people survived. Three people were missing.

Port Cmdr. Vincenzo Pace told SKY TG24 TV that searchers were finding seats, pieces of wreckage and personal items being pulled eastward by currents and wind.

Both engines gave out within minutes of each other before the crash, and prosecutors have been looking into the possibility that impurities in the fuel or lack of fuel might have contributed.

The charter, flying from the Adriatic port of Bari to the Tunisian resort of Djerba, crashed into choppy waters off Sicily’s northern coast. The pilot, Chefik Gharbi, had hoped to make an emergency landing in Palermo, but could not make it and ditched in the sea.

Gharbi, who is recovering from injuries at a Palermo hospital, was among the three people placed under investigation by chief Palermo prosecutor Piero Grasso, the ANSA and Apcom news agencies and state radio reported.

Grasso was also investigating the head of the fuel depot at Bari’s airport and the driver of the tanker truck that refueled the aircraft, the news reports said.

ANSA quoted Gharbi’s lawyer, Antonino Agnello, as saying the pilot was on Grasso’s list because he had already been placed under investigation by prosecutors in Bari and could not continue to answer questions as a mere witness.

Calls placed to the prosecutor’s office and the lawyers for the three men were not answered Tuesday.

ANSA reported Tuesday that authorities in Bari had determined that the tanker refueled the ATR after servicing five other aircraft. Since the tankers can carry residue of water and kerosene, it was possible that an unusually high amount of such residue was loaded onto the ATR, ANSA said.