At least six people were killed in a plane crash in Somalia on Monday. The plane was carrying aid supplies for use in the fight against the coronavirus, Somalia’s Transport Minister Mohamed Salad said, reported The New York Times.
All six people on board including the pilot, copilot, flight engineer, and trainee pilot, as well as two people working for the airline died.
The transport minister said that five bodies had been recovered but declined to speculate on the cause of the crash.
Salad said the government is going to send an investigation unit to investigate the crash. He added that the team will arrive on Tuesday.
According to the Somali National News Agency, the plane belonged to African Express Airways and was carrying supplies for use in the fight against COVID-19.
“An African [Express] Airways plane from Mogadishu flew to Baidoa and then continued its flight to Bardale town where it crashed,” the news agency wrote on its website. “It is not clear why it crashed.”
In an interview with Reuters, Somalia’s former Defence Minister Abdirashid Abdullahi Mohamed said he talked to a witness who told him the plane made an initial attempt to land, swung around again because of wildlife on the airfield, and then appeared to be shot on one wing on its second approach. He even provided some pictures showing the plane in flames, pieces of it scattered over a small area, and its tail intact, and provided a passenger list with six names.
Notably, the militant group Al Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked armed group fighting the Somali government, has a presence in the area where the plane came down. The town of Bardale, in the southern Bay region, and its airfield is, however, secured by Somali forces and Ethiopian troops.
The total Covid-19 cases in Somalia have crossed 756, the death toll is 35 and 61 patients have so far recovered from the disease.
