Rafi Marek, the captain of the Arkia flight from Mombasa, that narrowly missed being hit by missiles Thursday morning after takeoff said he initially though the plane was hit by a bird, and that the passengers remained calm throughout the flight.
After takeoff at low altitude we felt a slight blow to the plane. I first though a small bird hit the plane. Shortly afterwards we noticed two white plumes of smoke on our left. We carried out all the necessary examinations to see the all the airplane systems were intact. We didn't notice anything wrong and notified the Mombasa flight control that we were continuing on course as scheduled. "
"At first we thought that we were fired upon, but we weren't sure. Only when we heard about the tragic incident in the hotel, we thought the two incidents may be related."
"We spoke to the passengers who also saw the smoke... the passengers were very calm throughout the flight," the captain said.
Israeli tourists caught in the blast in the Paradise Hotel near Mombasa on Thursday morning, related how the explosion went off just after they had arrived at the hotel.
"Shortly after we got to the hotel there was an explosion," related one woman, who was identified as Linoy.
