'A hole appeared in the side of the plane and then he was gone': Mogadishu jet survivor says elderly passenger caught fire and was sucked out of cabin at 14,000 feet

A Somali computer programmer has told how a suspected bomb blast tore open the side of a plane and sucked out an elderly passenger to his death at 14,000 feet.

Survivor Hassan Mohamed Nur said the blast shook Daallo Airlines Flight D3159 five minutes after take off from Mogadishu, Somalia, and tore a hole in the jet's fuselage.

Describing the horror, he said the cabin went black and filled with thick smoke as passengers screamed in the confusion. 

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A explosion blew a hole in the side of the Airbus A321 just 15 minutes after it left Mogadishu in Somalia 

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A 6ft by 3ft hole tore through the jet's fuselage five minutes after the plane took off from Mogadishu Airport

Mr Nur said the passenger, an elderly man, caught fire before he was sucked from his seat and out of the Airbus A321. 

‘I saw the passenger, a man in his early 60s, get sucked out of the plane,' he told MailOnline. 'There was a huge bang. A big hole appeared in the side of the jet and the elderly passenger disappeared through it.

‘One minute he was sat in his seat, the next it he was gone. He’d been sucked out of the plane.

‘People were screaming. We all thought we were going to die.’

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Survivor: Hassan Mohamed Nur has described the terror on board Daallo Airlines Flight D3159

Airline officials say two passengers were hurt in the blast, which punched a six foot by three foot hole in the Airbus A321's fuselage yesterday, just five minutes after taking off from Mogadishu airport.

One of those injured is an elderly Finnish man, who is now in a stable condition at a hospital in Mogadishu, it is reported.

A badly burned body of an elderly man, who may have fallen from the plane, was found in Balad, a town 18 miles from Mogadishu.

The Daallo Airlines flight from Mogadishu to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa was still able to land safely in Somalia.  

The aircraft's pilot Vladimir Vodopivec, 64, from Serbia said: 'I think it was a bomb. 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.'

Officials at Somalia's civil aviation authority said Wednesday they had found no evidence so far that a criminal act had caused the explosion, despite the pilot's assertion.

Mr Nur said he does not believe the blast was caused by a bomb.

He added: ‘I blame the cause the bad weather. Imagine if the cause was a bomb, could the plane make a safe landing within 15 minutes after take off?’

He added that 74 passengers were on board plane and crew have been evacuated after the plane returned to Mogadishu airport.

A source revealed that initial tests have shown explosive residue indicating the aircraft may have been the victim of a suspected terrorist attack. 

The explosion happened as the aircraft passed between 12,000 and 14,000, before it reached its cruising altitude.  

Awale Kullane, Somalia's alternate 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'. 

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One passenger is believed to have fallen out of the hole in the fuselage caused by the suspected bomb 

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This photo shows the extent of the damage from a fire that started five minutes after take-off

 

When visibility returned they realised 'quite a chunk' of the plane was missing, he wrote.

Kullane, who was going to Djibouti to attend a conference for diplomats, also posted video showing some passengers putting on oxygen masks inside the plane.

Another passenger, Mohamed Ali, told The Associated Press they heard a bang before flames opened a gaping hole in the plane's side.

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Passengers reacted calmly despite the massive hole in the side of the fuselage caused by the explosion

'I don't know if it was a bomb or an electric shock, but we heard a bang inside the plane,' he said, adding he could not confirm reports that passengers had fallen from the plane.

One of the people onboard the flight filmed the aftermath of the explosion where the remaining passengers at calmly until the aircraft returned to the airport.   

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 read.

Hermes Airlines is based in Athens, Greece. 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. 

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Investigators moved the plane from the runway to a private hangar. Foreign technical experts are involved in the inquiry, said Ali Mohamoud, an aviation official at the Mogadishu airport. 

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Two people are reported to have been injured after the fire broke out on the Daallo Airlines plane

Somalia faces an insurgency perpetrated by the Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which is responsible for many deadly attacks across the nation. 

Aviation sources have suggested the aircraft was delayed leaving Mogadishu this afternoon meaning the suspected bomb, if it was on a timer, went off at a lower altitude, giving the passengers on board a greater chance of survival. 

John Goglia, former member of the US National Transportation Safety Board member said only a bomb or a pressurisation blowout caused by fatigue could cause such a hole in the side of the aircraft. 

However, the black soot around the hole would indicate a bomb.

He said the incident happened before the aircraft hit its cruising altitude which would reduce the possibility of a pressurisation event. 

He added: 'We don't know a lot, but certainly it looks like a device.'