Bloomberg
Friday, August 09, 2013
Somalia closed its main international
airport after an Ethiopian military cargo plane crashed on
landing, killing four crew members, officials said. The aircraft burst into flames as it touched down this
morning at Mogadishu International Airport, sending plumes of
dark smoke into the air, Ali Mohamed, a police officer at the
airport, said in an interview. Two crew members survived the
crash and are being treated in a Mogadishu hospital, the African
Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia said in an e-mailed
statement.
The Ethiopian Air Force plane was carrying ammunition for
use by AU peacekeepers in Somalia, Colonel Mahad Elmi, an
airport security official, said in a phone interview.
The AU has deployed peacekeepers in Somalia to help the
government fight al-Shabaab, an Islamist insurgency linked to
al-Qaeda. Somalia is emerging from two decades of civil war that
began when Mohamed Siad Barre, the former dictator, was
overthrown.
Da’ud Ali, an airport employee, said the aircraft’s wings
were on fire and smoke was billowing out of the plane’s
undercarriage as it landed.
The cause of the crash was a “technical problem,” Deputy
Information Minister Abdishakur Mire told reporters in the
capital. All flights have been halted until further notice, he
said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu via Nairobi at
[email protected]