By Enyichukwu Enemanna
At least three persons have been confirmed dead after Ugandan military helicopter carrying eight people on board crashed on Wednesday at Somalia’s main airport in the capital, Mogadishu, an aviation official said..
Fire broke out after the helicopter crashed at the Aden Adde International Airport, state-owned news agency reported, adding that emergency workers were quick to put the fire under control.
The helicopter, owned by Ugandan Air Force was operated by the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), and had taken off from Baledogle Airfield in the Lower Shabelle region with the eight people on board.
The fate of the remaining five people on board has yet to be determined, said a Ugandan military spokesperson.
Viral video footage showed plumes of smoke rising from the airport.
“We heard the blast and saw smoke and flames over a helicopter. The smoke entirely covered the helicopter,” Reuters quoted one of the airport officials as saying.
The cause of the crash was yet to be ascertained.
The head of the Somali Civil Aviation Authority, Ahmed Maalim, said the helicopter had come down in the airport’s military section after flying in from the Balidogle airbase in the Lower Shabelle region, about 90km north-west of Mogadishu.
He said that an investigation was under way to establish the cause of the crash.
Ugandan troops led by Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of President Yoweri Museveni are part of an 11,000-strong African Union (AU) force helping the government fight the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group.
In the last two decades, the group has been waging a brutal insurgency in Somalia.
The crash delayed the departure of a Turkish Airlines passenger plane, but domestic flights continued to operate normally
