A commercial airliner flying over Somalia was forced to make an emergency landing at the Mogadishu airport late Tuesday after an explosion and fire left a gaping hole in the plane's side, officials said on Wednesday.
The blast occurred shortly after the Airbus A321 plane took off from Mogadishu airport with Djibouti in the Horn of Africa as the intended destination, reported Fox News. The plane was forced to land after the explosion occurred.
All the passengers, two of whom were injured by the explosion, were evacuated after the plane landed. However, one passenger was found to be missing. The missing passenger's body was later found in the Balcad region, about 19 miles north of Mogadishu, according to Reuters. Authorities said that they believe the man was sucked out of the plane after the explosion occurred.
"The dead body of the passenger is being transported to Mogadishu," a police officer at the Mogadishu airport said. "He dropped when the explosion occurred in the plane."
Officials are currently working to determine what caused the explosion, with the general consensus leaning toward the cause being an explosive device, according to the Associated Press.
"I think it was a bomb," said the Serbian pilot, Vladimir Vodopivec, who was quoted by Belgrade daily Blic. "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," the 64-year-old pilot added.
John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety and aviation safety expert, shared the sentiment, arguing that only two things could have made a hole of that nature: a bomb or a pressurization blowout caused by a flaw or fatigue in the plane's skin.
"We don't know a lot, but certainly it looks like a device," he said, noting that a pressurization blowout would be unlikely since the incident occurred before the plane 30,000 feet, where pressurization is at its maximum.
The incident took place in a country that is plagued by the Islamic extremist group al-Shabaab, which have orchestrated a series of deadly attacks within Somalia.
