TUNIS, Tunisia (CNN) -- An Egyptian airliner with 60 people on board has crashed near the Tunisian capital of Tunis.
The Airbus 737-500 went down shortly after takeoff, officials at the Tunis-Carthage Airport said.
The aircraft crashed in Nahli, in the northern part of the capital, about six kilometres (four miles) from the Tunis-Carthage airport.
Fifty-five passengers and five crew were on board the aircraft when it went down. Some on board are reported the be alive and have been taken to hospital.
The control tower had lost contact with the plane a few seconds earlier, just after the pilot sent out a distress call, The Associated Press reported.
Weather was foggy and rainy at the time of the crash, with sandy, high-wind conditions.
TUNIS, Tunisia (Reuters) - An EgyptAir passenger plane, believed to be a Boeing 737, plowed into a hill Tuesday as it was attempting to land at Tunis's Carthage airport, and some passengers survived, a government official said.
Cairo airport officials said the plane had been carrying 55 passengers.
"Some of the passengers are alive. I do not know how many," a senior Tunisian government official told Reuters. He declined to give more details.
Cairo airport officials confirmed the EgyptAir plane had crashed in Tunisia with 55 passengers on board.
"My understanding from various sources, the EgyptAir plane is a Boeing 737 and it was carrying 55 passengers," one separate source said.
A witness said it crashed in the Nahli area of Tunis in wet weather.
Tunis airport officials said the plane's landing gear had failed to open during the approach into Tunis airport. The pilot had made a fresh circuit to attempt a fresh landing when the plane crashed, the officials said.
EgyptAir information officer Ahmed Fathi told Reuters the flight was EgyptAir 843, flying from Cairo to Tunis. He did not give further details.
Cairo airport said the passengers were of varying nationalities.
The crash occurred two days after a BAC 1-11-500 airliner plowed into a poor suburb of the northern Nigerian city of Kano, killing 148 people, including dozens on the ground.
EgyptAir last suffered a major air disaster when a Boeing 767-366 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off the U.S. coast in October 1999, killing all 217 people on board.
TUNIS (Reuters) - At least five passengers on board the EgyptAir plane which slammed into a Tunis hillside on Tuesday died in the crash, a senior government official said.
"At least five of the passengers died. Many others were wounded, including 13 who have been taken to hospital," he told Reuters.
The mountainous crash site was very difficult to reach, but rescue workers had managed to get to the scene and were working swiftly to evacuate the injured.
The official said there was a total of 55 passengers on board the airliner.
One airport source said there were 20 Egyptian passengers, eight staff and 27 passengers of other nationalities on board. He said the plane came down 11 miles from Tunis airport.
Tunis airport officials said the plane's landing gear had failed to open during the approach into Tunis airport. The pilot had made another circuit before attempting a fresh landing when the plane crashed, the officials said.
TUNIS (Reuters) - Rescue workers have led donkeys and horses up a rainswept hillside to pick up the dead and injured from an Egyptian airliner which crashed near Tunis killing at least 20 people.