Ugandan military helicopter crashes at Somalia airport, official says

A Ugandan subject chopper with 8 radical connected committee has crashed astatine the main planetary airdrome successful Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, an aviation authoritative has told the BBC.

The state-run quality bureau reported that a occurrence broke retired aft the chopper crashed astatine the Aden Adde International Airport, but it had been rapidly contained by the exigency services. Video footage showed plumes of fume rising from the airport.

"We heard the blast and saw fume and flames implicit a helicopter. The fume wholly covered the helicopter," Farah Abdulle, 1 of the airdrome staff, told Reuters quality agency.

The origin of the clang and casualty figures are unclear.

The caput of the Somali Civil Aviation Authority, Ahmed Maalim, told the BBC that the chopper had travel down successful the airport's subject conception aft flying successful from the Balidogle airbase successful the Lower Shabelle region.

He said that an probe was nether mode to found the origin of the crash.

Ugandan troops are portion of an African Union (AU) unit helping the authorities combat the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group, which has been waging a brutal insurgency successful Somalia.