A plane flying from Somalia to Djibouti suffered an explosion mid-air, an elderly man sucked out of the aircraft at around 14 000 feet.

Hold off on the sympathy though, as it appears the man had detonated a bomb on the plane that blasted a hole in the fuselage measuring about six foot by three foot.

According to airline officials two people were injured in the blast before staff moved passengers to the back of the plane, one person on board filming the damage as you can see above. Here’s the Daily Mail:

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.’

A source [said] 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.

Somali aviation official Ali Mohamoud said the aircraft, operated by Daallo Airlines was headed to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, was forced to land minutes after taking off from the Mogadishu airport…

Mohamed Hassan, a police officer in nearby Balad town, said residents had found the dead body of an old man who might have fallen from a plane.

Perhaps a lesson to us all then – don’t detonate bombs on planes, it just ain’t cool.

And you thought that slightly odd-smelling old guy sat next to you on your last flight was a crummy travel buddy.

[source:dailymail&airlive]