Somalia – The pilot of a passenger plane that was damaged in an explosion and fire over Somalia described on Wednesday how the crew jumped into action to fly the plane back to Mogadishu airport and keep the passengers calm even as smoke enveloped the passenger cabin and wind rushed through a hole blown through the fuselage.
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In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Serbian captain Vlatko Vodopivec said he and others were told the explosion was caused by a bomb, though civil aviation authority officials said Wednesday they had found no evidence so far of a criminal act in Tuesday’s blast aboard the Airbus 321 jetliner.
“It happened at about 11,000 feet,” Vodopivec said. “It was my first bomb; I hope it will be the last.”
The 64-year-old has flown for several European and African companies in a long piloting career.
“When we heard a loud bang, the co-pilot went back to the cabin to inspect the damage and I took over the commands as the procedure demands,” he said, adding that the engines and hydraulics functioned normally so he had no problem flying the aircraft back to Mogadishu.
“Smoke came into the cockpit, but it was mostly concentrated in the back of the aircraft,” he said in a telephone interview from a U.N. military base in Mogadishu before he was to fly to Athens, Greece. “The stewardesses did a great job calming down the passengers and following the emergency procedure.”
He said the crew included an Italian co-pilot and two Greek, two Kenyan and one Bosnian flight attendant.
“We were told one person was sucked out of the plane, but that is still not confirmed,” he added.
Cellphone video taken aboard the plane pans from passengers, some wearing oxygen masks, in seats toward the back of the airliner in flight, and then swivels to the empty front area with a hole in the side of the cabin. There is a loud sound of rushing air. The video was taken by Awale Kullane, Somalia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, and obtained by The Associated Press.
The passengers bunched in the back appear calm. A child wearing an oxygen mask attached to the overhead compartment sits quietly, a blanket covering the legs. Near the hole, oxygen masks dangle and sway from overhead compartments.
Investigators moved the plane from the runway to a private hangar. Foreign technical experts were involved in the inquiry, said Ali Mohamoud, an aviation official at the Mogadishu airport.
Two passengers on board the flight that was headed to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa said they heard a loud bang that left a hole in the passenger cabin.
Awale Kullane, Somalia’s deputy ambassador to the U.N. who was on board the flight, said on Facebook that he “heard a loud noise and couldn’t see anything but smoke for a few seconds.” When visibility returned they realized “quite a chunk” of the plane was missing, he wrote.
An official investigation is underway and a preliminary report will be issued later this week, officials said.
Daallo Airlines said in a brief statement posted on its Facebook page that the Airbus A321 plane was operated by Hermes Airlines. It said the plane “experienced an incident shortly after take-off.”
“The Aircraft landed safely and all of our passengers were evacuated safely. A thorough investigation is being conducted by Somalia Civil Aviation Authority,” the Daallo statement said.
Hermes Airlines is based in Athens. Its main business is providing planes on a “wet lease” basis, meaning it leases insured planes staffed and serviced by its crew to other carriers.
Hermes’ fleet includes four A321s, one Airbus A320 and one Boeing 737, according to its website
Mohamed Hassan, a police officer in Balad, an agricultural town 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) north of Mogadishu, said residents had found the dead body of a man who might have fallen from a plane.
The cellphone video pans from passengers, some wearing oxygen masks, in seats toward the back of the airliner in flight, and then swivels to the empty front area with a hole in the side of the cabin, the result of an explosion soon after takeoff from Somalia’s capital.
The passengers bunched in the back, likely instructed to sit far from the hole, appear calm. A child wearing an oxygen mask attached to the overhead compartment sits quietly, a blanket over his or her legs. Near the hole, oxygen masks dangle, swaying in a light breeze.
There is a loud sound of rushing air throughout the video, which was taken by Awale Kullane, Somalia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations. The Greece-based Hermes Airlines plane took off from Mogadishu’s airport, bound for Djibouti, and returned for an emergency landing after the explosion.
The plane was not that full during boarding, so people sat wherever they wanted, he said. Kullane. He recalled hearing a crewmember announcing over the communications system that the plane was at an altitude of about 11,000 feet (3.35 kilometers) and people should keep their seatbelts on until authorized to move around.
“Then I heard a big bang, so, and the smoke erupted so we couldn’t see anything for a few seconds, so it was a bit scary,” said Kullane, who was sitting in the middle of the airplane.
“Most people started moving behind me so I saw kind of a space of, a chunk of small area of the plane missing, and that air was floating in and out, and the oxygen masks had started to drop above us. So everything looked a bit more critical,” he said.
“I took a video clip after things had settled down and most people started moving at the back of the plane,” Kullane said. “For the first few seconds and minutes… I was terrified and most people were terrified.”
Somali officials said Wednesday they had found no evidence so far of a criminal act. Serbian pilot Vladimir Vodopivec said pressure was lost in the cabin and he suspects the blast was caused by a bomb. Somali officials said there were two injuries. There were also unverified reports that a person fell out of the hole.
Somalia faces an insurgency perpetrated by the Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which is responsible for many deadly attacks across the nation.