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Man sucked out as explosion forces plane to make emergency landing in Somalia
Mohamed Hassan, a police officer in nearby Balcad, said residents had found a dead body of an old man who they believed had fallen from the Airbus A321.
Local authorities in the Balcad area, about 30 kilometres north of Mogadishu, confirmed the body of the man, believed to have been sucked out of the plane, was found in the area.
A police officer at Mogadishu airport said: "The dead body of the passenger is being transported to Mogadishu." The officer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters that the man was about 55 years old.
"He dropped when the explosion occurred in the plane," he said.
The Daallo Airlines plane was en route to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa when it was forced to land minutes after taking off from Mogadishu airport, Mr Mohamoud said.
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.
"I don't know if it was a bomb or an electric shock, but we heard a bang inside the plane," he said.
There was no immediate explanation of the explosion from the airline or Somali government officials.
"Daallo airline was en route to Djibouti but it landed shortly after it took off. A fire exploded and two passengers were slightly wounded," Mohamed Hussein, an agent for Daallo Airlines, the operator of the flight, said.
Daallo flies to several destinations in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, its website showed.
A source familiar with the investigation said flammable objects are not usually put in that place in an aircraft, though some reports suggested an oxygen bottle may be involved.
However, safety experts say oxygen bottles usually catch fire rather than exploding. Photographs did not show significant damage to overhead panels where such bottles are usually kept.
US government sources claimed investigators believed a bomb was the potential cause of the explosion.
Experts have praised the actions of the crew in landing the plane with just two of the 74 passengers being injured.
Somalia faces an insurgency perpetrated by the Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which is responsible for many deadly attacks across the nation.
AP, Reuters
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/explosi...in-somalia-20160202-gmkav3.html#ixzz3zA2sCQiK
It may seem morbid, but I'm going to hedge a bet that the man who was sucked out of the plane was a terrorist. If so, he must be pretty dumb, to be the only person killed. If he was just a victim, what a horrible way to die - the plane was at low altitude, so if he survived the explosion/exit consciously, he would have been conscious when he hit the ground.
A lucky escape for everyone else thankfully - again because the plane was at low altitude, there was no explosive decompression.