There was no immediate comment from al Shabaab, the Somali Islamist group that has waged an insurgency against the Western-backed Somalia government. The damage to the interior of the plane did not appear consistent with such an event, and experts noted oxygen bottles normally catch on fire during mishaps, rather than exploding with the force necessary to punch a hole in the fuselage. Daallo Airlines, which did not refer to a blast, said on its website that the “incident” that caused a hole in the fuselage happened when the plane was 15 minutes into the flight.
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Awale Kullane via APA hole is photographed in a plane operated by Daallo Airlines as it sits on the runway after an emergency landing at the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia Tuesday Feb. 2, 2016.
A Tuesday explosion on a Daallo Airlines plane over Somalia, which caused a massive hole in its fuselage, is suspected to have been caused by a bomb.
Kullane, who was going to Djibouti to attend a conference for diplomats, also posted a video showing some passengers putting on oxygen masks inside the plane.
Al-Shabab has operated in Somalia since 2006 and continues to launch deadly attacks against military and civilian targets in the country, as well as in neighbouring Kenya, which deployed its army to fight the armed group.
The plane’s Serbian pilot Vladimir Vodopivec, 64, told Belgrade newspaper Blic that he thought it was a bomb. “I was terrified and most people were terrified”, he said.
However, as CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports, aviation experts say that if it walks like a bomb and talks like a bomb – it’s probably a bomb.
“That is what they are saying, but the Civil Aviation [Authority] thinks differently”, Daallo chief executive Mohammed Ibrahim Yassin said.
“He dropped when the explosion occurred in the plane“, a separate police officer said. Something like this has never happened in my flight career.
“We were told a person was sucked out of the plane, but that is still not confirmed”, he added.
Here’s a look at other airliners that have made emergency landings after suffering explosions or severe structural damage midair. Pilots managed to return the airplane and land safely at Mogadishu Airport without further incident. “All passengers disembarked the aircraft; two peoples had minor injuries”.
Aviation website www.airlive.net said the explosion occurred on flight D3159, an Airbus A321.
One of the plane’s passengers Mohamed Ali said that they heard a bang before flames opened a gaping hole in the plane’s side.
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Foreign airlines flying to the Somali capital, Mogadishu on Wednesday halted their regular flights after a commuter jet plane made an emergency landing shortly after taking-off yesterday, Horseed Media reports.
