Plane makes emergency landing as wheel-chair suicide bomber strikes (photos)

– A plane has been forced to make an emergency landing in Mogadishu few minutes after take-off

– An explosion ripped a hole in the airliner, causing the pilot to land the plane abruptly

– Investigations reveal that a wheelchair-bound passenger who was not properly screened smuggled

Investigations have revealed that a suicide bomber who posed as a disabled passenger to dodge rigorous security checks, was the mastermind behind the blast on a flight from Mogadishu.

The blast which occurred on Tuesday, February 2, forced a Daallo Airline Airbus A321 flight D3159 to make an emergency landing at Mogadishu the capital city of Somalia.

According to Air Live,  the plane made an emergency landing after an explosion soon after takeoff.

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Mounting evidence suggest that the blast was a terror attack, with a Western diplomat saying that investigators had swabbed the area of the explosion and found the residue of explosives.

the diplomat told the Wall Street Journal that: “An individual got onto the plane in a wheelchair and is suspected of being the suicide bomber.”

The wheelchair-bound passenger is believed to have been transferred into a regular seat after being brought onto the plane. A passenger sitting next to him has been arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice.

According to The Independent, the bomb, which went off 20 minutes into the plane’s flight to Djibouti, tore a door-sized gap in the plane’s fuselage, through which one passenger is believed to have been sucked out of the plane.

Witnesses say a loud bang was heard followed by flames which left 2 passengers injured.

Sources reported that the body of a person fallen from a plane was seen around Balcad town, Somalia.

It is not yet confirmed if that passenger – who eyewitnesses say was engulfed in flames – was the suspected bomber.

However, police in the town of Balad, 20 miles outside of Mogadishu, have recovered the body which the local residents said appeared to have fallen from the plane and examinations are being carried out.

Below are photos from of the plane which was forced to land at Mogadishu.

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As at the time of filing this report, no group had yet claimed responsibility for the bomb, but suspicion is likely to focus on Somalia’s al-Shabaab militant group, factions of which have declared allegiance to the Islamic State.

The group is responsible for downing a Russian airliner in Egypt last year.

Zakaria Yusuf, a Horn of Africa analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank, however, said that Al-Shabaab would have been quick to claim responsibility for the bomb if it had been their doing.

By being able to perform an emergency landing, the pilot of the plane saved the lives of the 74 people on board.

Meanwhile, Telegraph UK reports that an immediate review of security at Mogadishu airport facility has been prompted by the prospect that a wheelchair-bound passenger was able to penetrate the screening process.

Mohammed Ibrahim Yassin, the chief executive of the airline that was targeted in the bomb – Daallo Airlines, confirmed that investigators had found “residues” of explosives, but said they were not yet “100 per cent that it’s a bomb”.

He described security at Mogadishu airport as “good” and multilayered, and “much better than it used to be.”

Disabled passengers are a common sight on flights in war-torn Somalia, and are sometimes treated as being above suspicion.

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