Mid-air Explosion Injures Two over Somalia

Local Editor

Pilot of Daallo Airlines flight was able to safely land the plane after an explosion occurred Tuesday, injuring two as the blast punched a hole in the aluminum fuselage about six foot by three foot in size.

As pictures showed a gaping hole in the plane's fuselage, between two windows, media reports quoted a source with knowledge of the investigation as saying that explosive residue was found around the damaged area.

Relatively, other sources reported that an unidentified man was sucked out of a passenger jet at 14,000 feet after the blast caused a hole through the side of the fuselage just five minutes after the Airbus A321 took off from Mogadishu.

Eyewitnesses claimed the badly burned body of an elderly man fell to the earth about 15 miles away from the airport at the time of the blast.

In the context, the aircraft's pilot Vladimir Vodopivec, 64, from Serbia said: 'I think it was a bomb. Luckily, the flight controls were not damaged so I could return and land at the airport. Something like this has never happened in my flight career. We lost pressure in the cabin. Thank god it ended well.'

For his part, Abdisalam Aato, a spokesman for Somalia's Prime Minister's Office did not offer details as to the cause of the explosion but said that "the incident is under investigation," adding that "there is a lot of conflicting information."

Although there has been no official confirmation that the incident was caused by a bomb, however the al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab militant extremist group is active in the region.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team