Hopes are fading for a UK oil worker missing after a plane crash off the coast of Libya which killed five of his British colleagues and at least 12 others.

The five dead Britons were Patrick Cox from County Durham, Thomas McNeilly from Coatbridge near Glasgow, Ronald Jarred from Middlesbrough, John Morton from Birkenhead, and Roy Parfitt from Lymm in Cheshire.

It is feared that a total of 22 oil-workers from eight countries were killed when their Belfast-built Shorts SD-360 ditched in the Mediterranean.

It is believed a fault with the fuel system caused both engines of the plane, carrying a total of 41 people, to fail five miles from its destination, a petrochemicals complex in Marsa el Brega in northern Libya, about 450 miles east of Tripoli.

By Friday evening, 17 people were known to have died with five more, including the Briton, missing. Nineteen survived.

A search of the area around the crash site continued all day but with dusk falling, experts said there was little chance of finding any of the missing men alive.

Wife informed by friend

The wife of one of the victims criticised her husband's employers, the Libyan state-run Sirte Oil Company, for not informing her of the tragedy.

Margaret Parfitt, 52, who was told about the accident by a friend, said she contacted Sirte officials to try to find out more details.

The mother-of-four added: "We are all still shell-shocked - devastated.

"I can't explain how it feels for someone to die because the plane ran out of fuel and secondly that they didn't think he was worth a phone call after 20 years (working for the company)."

The family of Mr McNeilly also said they were struggling to come to terms with their loss.

His sister-in-law Jacqueline Walsh said the loss of the 44-year-old welding engineer, who had three children, was a stunning blow to the family, and that his wife Maureen was distraught.

The elder son of Mr Morton, 55, said his father had only returned to Libya on Wednesday after spending Christmas and New Year with his family.

Martin Morton, 37, said the widower had been "a really hard-working man who was devoted to his family. He was just a worker. He taught us to work hard. It was very important part of his life."

The bodies of the British victims have been flown to Tripoli and are expected to be flown back to Gatwick airport on Saturday.



'I'm alive'

Seven more Britons were among 19 survivors plucked from the sea by local fishing boats after the crash on Thursday morning.

One suffered a broken leg but the others received only minor injuries.

Stewart Bonar, a 59-year-old from Limavady, County Londonderry, called his wife, Olive, to say he had survived and was being treated in hospital for a broken leg and other injuries.

A tearful Mrs Bonar said: "He said he had had a lot of X-rays taken and he is very, very upset, obviously and very annoyed about his two mates who he travelled with all the time and worked with. They are both dead.

"I asked him how did he get out (of the plane), but he just said he really didn't want to talk about it, he just said 'I'm alive'."

Relatives of another survivor told how his he had earlier dodged death after being caught up in the bombing of an Iraqi petrochemical plant during the Iraq-Iran war.

The escape of Dave Wilkinson, 47, of Hartlepool, was a "miracle", said his brother Alan Wilkinson, 44, also of Hartlepool.

Investigation

British air crash investigators are heading to Libya to join a team of Swiss and Libyan experts seeking to discover what caused the crash.

The company which operated the plane, Zurich-based Avisto AG, said investigations were likely to centre on fuel problems.

"It could be the fuel system, it is even likely that it was the fuel system," said head of special projects Bruno Jans.

The two Swiss-trained Libyan pilots both survived the crash, and the aircraft was fitted with two flight and data recorders.



Three other Libyans, one Briton and one Filipino - none of whom have been named - are still unaccounted for.

The search, involving 15 divers, several ships and an aircraft, was suspended as darkness fell on Friday evening but was due to resume on Saturday.

Avisto said the bodies of three Libyans, two Canadians, two Croatians, two Filipinos, one Pakistani, one Indian and one Tunisian, a stewardess married to a Libyan, had been found.