A Ugandan Army spokesman told the BBC that eight people crashed on a Ugandan military helicopter crashed and caught fire at the main international airport in the Somalia capital Mogadishu.
Major General Felix Kulaiigye said three people escaped Burns by Burns, but the other five were “not considered yet.”
“We heard the explosion and saw smoke and flames on a helicopter. The smoke completely covered the helicopter,” Farah Abdulle, one of the airport staff, told Reuters news agency.
The state-run news agency in Somalia reported that emergency services quickly curbed the fire.
The Ugandan army is part of an 11,000 African Union (AU) unit that helps the government fight al-Shabaab group with Al Qaeda-linked, which has been brutally rebelling in Somalia for more than two decades.
Ahmed Maalim, head of the Somalia Civil Aviation Authority, told the BBC that helicopters flew into the military zone of the airport from the Balidogle Airbase in the Lower Shabel region about 90 kilometers (56 miles) northwest of the Trojan.
In a statement, the AU mission in Somalia said the three survivors had been taken to hospital for treatment and that an operation to “retrieve the remaining crew and passengers” was underway.
Both AU and Somalian officials said an investigation is being conducted to establish the cause of the crash.
It delayed the departure of Turkish Airlines’ passenger planes, but domestic flights continued to operate normally.
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