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An explosion suspected to have been a bomb tore a hole in the side of a Daallo Airlines commercial jet, with reports that the burning body of a passenger was ejected out of the opening.

Eyewitnesses claim the badly burned body of an elderly man fell to earth about 25KMs away from Mogadishu airport.

Somali authorities confirmed to CNN that they had discovered a body near Mogadishu, which they believe fell from the Daallo Airlines plane.

“The passenger plane made an emergency landing soon after it took off on Tuesday, and there was a damage on one side of the aircraft over the right wing,” Somali police officer Mohamed Ise said.

When the plane landed back at Mogadishu International Airport, about 75 people were evacuated and there only two minor injuries among the ­remaining passengers.

“I think it was a bomb,” said the ­pilot, Vladimir Vodopivec. “Luckily, the flight controls were not damaged so I could return and land at the airport. We lost pressure in the cabin. Thank God it ended well.”

While the official cause of the explosion is unknown, initial tests of the damage on Flight D3159 came back positive for explosive residue, a source told CNN, although no group has taken responsibility.

Al-Shabaab has been behind some of the worst violence in recent years in and around Somalia, with the most recent being a deadly attack on a beachside restaurant-hotel complex in Mogadishu. – AP