Somalia Plane Explosion From a Bomb? One Passenger Missing

An explosion on a plane minutes after taking off in Somalia on Tuesday killed one person, apparently, and left a huge hole in the fuselage of the commercial airliner which returned to the airport and landed safely.

The Daallo Airlines flight left the Somali capital of Mogadishu heading to Djibouti, reported the BBC News. The explosion happened shortly after takeoff and there were reports that one person fell out of the hole caused by the explosion.

Daallo Airlines is the national carrier for Djibouti with flights to the Middle East, Europe, central and eastern Africa,

"According to the information received from Mogadishu Airport, the flight was approximately 15 minutes in the air when the incident happened which caused a hole in the fuselage," said the Daallo Airlines website.

"However, pilots managed to land the aircraft back to Mogadishu Airport safely and without any further incident. All passengers, except one, disembarked safely after aircraft landed at the airport and currently investigations are underway to ascertain the cause of one missing passenger. Two passengers have been reported to have suffered minor injuries and they were taken to the hospital for treatment." 

Two U.S. government sources told Reuters on Wednesday that they believed a bomb likely caused the explosion, but forensic evidence was lacking.

Darren Howe, who had a colleague on the flight, told BBC News that "it was not an explosion but a fuselage failure at 10,000 feet."

Somalia forces have been fighting the militant Islamist group al-Shabab, which has carried out terrorists attacks in the country, noted the BBC News.

Daallo said the Civil Aviation Authority in Mogadishu and officials from Hermes Airlines, the Greek company that owns the aircraft, are investigating the incident.

"Daallo Airlines takes security and safety of its passengers very seriously and would like to assure that its all aircraft (owned and leased) are registered/maintained under EASA (European Union) regulations and are being operated by highly qualified and experienced pilots from Europe," said the airline.

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