Last week I posted a video of a Daallo Airlines flight between Mogadishu to Djibouti, which experienced an explosion shortly after takeoff. The explosion caused a roughly one meter hole in the side of the plane, and one person was even sucked out of the plane, as his remains were found in a nearby village.
There are two interesting updates to the story, one of which we’ll chalk up to karma, and the other of which we’ll chalk up to very good luck (or bad luck, depending on the airline).
First of all, the one guy who was blown out of the plane happened to be the guy with the explosive, according to reports. Via Airwise:
The bomber was sucked out of the plane through the 1 metre wide hole when the blast ripped open the pressurised cabin in flight, officials said.
US officials said investigators believe the bomb was hidden in a laptop computer, and that the bomber had some type of connection to airline or airport personnel.
CCTV footage released by the Somali National Intelligence Agency (NISA) appears to show two airport workers inside the terminal handing the suicide bomber a laptop, according to the government spokesman.
I guess it’s slightly less sad if the only guy who got killed was the one who was trying to blow up the plane.
But there’s more. The passenger wasn’t even meant to be on a Daallo Airlines flight, but rather had been booked on Turkish, and that flight was canceled:
Daallo Airlines chief executive, Mohamed Yassin, said most of the passengers who were on the bombed flight were scheduled to fly with Turkish Airlines, but were flown to Djibouti by one of his planes after the Turkish carrier cancelled its flight, citing bad weather.
“That particular passenger (who was behind the blast) boarded the aircraft on a Turkish Airlines boarding pass and was on the list for the Turkish Airlines manifest,” Yassin told Reuters news agency.
Yassin said Daallo picked up the 70 stranded Turkish Airlines passengers to fly them to Djibouti, including the suicide bomber. In total, the flight had 74 passengers.
Turkish must be rather happy they canceled that flight! I’m not sure if that’s crazier, or that 70 of the 74 passengers were supposed to be on Turkish, meaning the A321 presumably only otherwise had four passengers on it!
Bottom line
Thank goodness no one died in this incident, other than the guy with the explosive. It’s crazy to think he wasn’t even meant to be booked on that flight… and almost as crazy to think that the flight originally only had four people booked on it!
Are you kidding me with this statement: "The only ones that need to go through metal detectors are the traveling airline personnel – pilots, flight attendants, etc"
Actually, they are slightly less risk than those that do NOT fly. After all, many of these other people can slip something into baggage, freight, materials, food carts, etc. and not have to sacrifice their own well being. At least the crew has to die in the process.
...Are you kidding me with this statement: "The only ones that need to go through metal detectors are the traveling airline personnel – pilots, flight attendants, etc"
Actually, they are slightly less risk than those that do NOT fly. After all, many of these other people can slip something into baggage, freight, materials, food carts, etc. and not have to sacrifice their own well being. At least the crew has to die in the process.
I am not saying I am worried about this, but wanted to point out the OBVIOUS to those not thinking it all the way through. Maybe you should work for the TSA.
Strange that airport employees dont pass through metal detectors in the US. In Singapore, everyone passes through detectors. When I was interning at the airport, even heading out for lunch was a hassle as it meant I had to pass through those detectors. Maybe you all should push your government or local airports to adopt this measure.
@MD.....Thanks!
But I beg to disagree with your statement that "travelling airline personnel...need to go through metal detectors".
I see them walk around metal detectors, or through side door, in two MAJOR airports I frequent where they go through side doors and yes badges are checked etc, but NO metal detectors......
Then I pray as I am a nervos flyer as it is...
@tom - The only ones that need to go through metal detectors are the traveling airline personnel - pilots, flight attendants, etc. All local airport employees are issued a SIDA badge that comes with its own restrictions such as an extensive background check and badges are required to be worn at all times in the SIDA area. While these local employees don't have to go through security, they keep pretty strict tracking through door badges,...
@tom - The only ones that need to go through metal detectors are the traveling airline personnel - pilots, flight attendants, etc. All local airport employees are issued a SIDA badge that comes with its own restrictions such as an extensive background check and badges are required to be worn at all times in the SIDA area. While these local employees don't have to go through security, they keep pretty strict tracking through door badges, cameras, challenges, audits, etc to make it easy to identify responsible parties if an incident happens. So, they may be able to get away with something, but not for long.
Pretty sure TK uses its own, private security at Mogadishu. Hopefully, they would have caught this, as the security there is otherwise extremely lax.
Sounds like he was an unwitting mule then.
Even crazier is that any major airline would actually fly to Somalia.
Why do so many US airports now have lines, doors etc where flight crew and others with some form of ID just show that ID and no longer have to go through a metal detector? Are we dreaming? How do we really know that there family is not being held against their will etc? OMG.......why are we doing this when we have Pre-Check...the lines are small let them all use pre-check