The idea of a bomb exploding in the middle of a flight might sound like an unsurvivable event, but there's one miraculous story of how one terrorist's plot was foiled.
What should have been a catastrophic tragedy somehow ended with nearly everyone surviving, and it all came down to timing.
Investigators reported how Somali national Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh smuggled a bomb hidden inside a laptop onto Daallo Airlines Flight 159, as reported by CNN.
The bomber knew exactly where to sit and how to position the device to cause maximum destruction. The explosive device built into the laptop was described as 'sophisticated' and managed to pass through X-ray machines at Mogadishu airport in Africa without detection.
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According to sources close to the investigation, if the plane had been at cruising altitude when the bomb detonated, the blast likely would have triggered a catastrophic secondary explosion in the fuel tank and brought down the entire aircraft.
However, something else happened instead.
On February 2, 2016, the bomb detonated just 20 minutes into the flight, before the aircraft reached cruising altitude. The explosion blew a massive hole in the side of the Daallo Airlines plane, but didn't bring it down.
As shared by a simulation from Zack D Films, the bomb didn’t destroy the plane. Instead, the blast blew only the suspected bomber out through the hole in the fuselage. His body was later recovered on the ground near Mogadishu.
The damaged aircraft managed to make an emergency landing back at Mogadishu airport. Remarkably, everyone else on board survived the incident, though two passengers sustained injuries.
The plane's pilot later explained that if the explosion had occurred at a higher altitude, it would almost certainly have caused the jet to crash. At the time of detonation, the aircraft was at 3,500 metres (11,000 feet) and still climbing toward its planned cruising altitude of 9,500 metres (31,000 feet).
“When we went past 10,000ft, we switched off the fasten belts sign and the cabin crew started serving passengers,” said Vlatko Vodopivec, the pilot who guided the plane down. “When we climbed past 11,000ft, it exploded. At first, I thought it was a window breaking. However, we soon sensed the smell of the explosives when smoke came rushing into the cockpit."
He added: “All lasted very shortly. We immediately demanded an emergency return to the airport because that was the only solution. With a heavy heart, because there the security is minimal and we had to remain there for a couple of days afterward.”
Despite the force of the explosion, the evidence remained intact. A Somali official told CNN that a piece of the keyboard from the laptop and the laptop bag, although badly burned, survived the blast.
“At least 20 people, including the two men in the CCTV footage who handed over the laptop to the suspected bomber, were arrested in connection with the explosion in the aircraft,” said government spokesman Abdisalam Aato. “It was a deliberate act of terrorism.”
In response to the incident, Somalia's government pledged to tighten security at the airport to prevent similar threats in the future.
Unable to believe the passengers' luck, one person replied to the simulation, saying: "A bomber getting sucked out of the plane is PEAK KARMA."
Another added: "If he died immediately upon detonating the bomb (which is likely), then he never knew that his plan failed."
A third concluded: "Bro got the uno reverse 💀."