Suicide bomber in wheelchair sucked out of hole in plane

A man in a wheelchair may have blown himself up on a plane in Somalia and then been sucked out of a hole in the side.

The passenger could have sneaked the bomb on to the Daallo Airlines flight on Tuesday, a source told the Wall Street Journal.

Only one person died as a result of the explosion, Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh, but he has not yet been named as a potential suicide bomber.

The plane made an emergency landing.

Residents of Balad, a town 30 kilometres (about 18 miles) north of Mogadishu, found Borleh’s body after it apparently fell from the plane.

Daallo Airlines CEO Mohammed Ibrahim Yassin said investigators had found what appears to be residue from explosives, though he cautioned that the findings were inconclusive.

The preliminary discovery lends weight to the possibility a bomb was to blame for the blast that tore through the Airbus 321 shortly after takeoff from Mogadishu.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast but Somalia faces an insurgency from Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which has carried out deadly attacks in the African nation and neighbouring countries.

The Airbus A321 was carrying 74 passengers when the explosion struck.