[ad_1]
NAIROBI, Kenya – Kenyan authorities are investigating the fatal crash of a plane carrying medical supplies in Somalia, while a Somali official claims the plane was shot down. Six people on board were killed.
The Kenyan Civil Aviation Authority said on Tuesday that the twin-engine plane registered in Kenya with African Express crashed on Monday afternoon as it approached Bardale “in circumstances that we have not yet confirmed.”
A projectile fired from the ground hit the plane as it approached the airstrip in the Bay region, Ahmed Isaq, a local official with the southwest state regional administration, told The Associated Press.
The airstrip is a base for the Ethiopian army under the African Union multinational mission, which is fighting the al-Shabab extremist group linked to al-Qaida. The group controls parts of rural southern and central Somalia.
There were no immediate comments from Ethiopian authorities on Tuesday.
The plane had left Somalia’s capital Mogadishu and stopped at Baidoa before continuing on to Bardale, according to the Kenya statement. Kenyan authorities said they were in contact with the Somali Civil Aviation Authority.
Somalia’s transport ministry called the accident “a terrible accident” and said the government was investigating.
