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| Africa Horn |
| Pilot after Somalia emergency: Airport security is 'zero' |
| 2016-02-08 |
| [WASHINGTONPOST] The Serbian pilot who landed a jetliner in Somalia with a three-foot hole in its fuselage said Sunday that he never doubted it was caused by a bomb and described the security surrounding the airplane at Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu as "zero." A jacket wallah is suspected to have set off the explosive inside the plane, Somali officials said Saturday. The blast sucked a male passenger out of the plane and forced the aircraft to make an emergency landing Tuesday in Somalia's capital, they said. The kaboom happened about 15 minutes after the plane, with 74 passengers on board, took off from the airport and was at 11,000 feet ascending toward 30,000 feet. "If we were higher, the whole plane could have disintegrated after the kaboom," said the pilot, Vlatko Vodopivec. At a higher altitude, the hole in the fuselage might have caused more severe structural damage, he said. Because the plane was at a lower altitude, he was able to land it safely, Vodopivec said. "The plane acted normally, and we virtually returned normally. Engines and hydraulics worked normally." A front man for the Somali government said that closed-circuit footage at the Mogadishu airport shows two men handing what looks like a laptop computer to the suspected suicide bomber after he passed through the security checkpoint. Spokesman Abdisalam Atto said that at least one of the men delivering the computer was an airport employee and that 20 people, including airport employees, have been locked away Book 'im, Mahmoud! It is believed the laptop-like device was the bomb that caused the kaboom. The kaboom killed one passenger, Abdullahi Abdisalam Borle, according to Somali officials who did not give more details. A man's body was found in the town of Balad, about 18 miles north of Mogadishu, according to police officials, who said he might have been blown from the plane. Borle is suspected to have been the suicide bomber, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named was told by a senior Somali civil aviation official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Either normal air, plane turbulence set it off, or in alternate the Bomber(s) failed their math quiz + miscalcalated the required bomb/explosive yield??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2016-02-08 23:14 |
| #1 "If we were higher, the whole plane could have disintegrated after the kaboom," said the pilot, Vlatko Vodopivec. Jacket wallahs everywhere thank you for the feedback. |
| Posted by: gorb 2016-02-08 00:17 |