The fighter jet was one of several Russian-made Sukhois used by Iraq in the fight against ISIS and was returning to base, said a government official.
Military spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan Ibrahim told The Associated Press a mechanical failure was responsible for the malfunction in the Sukhoi warplane that caused the bomb to drop. Mann said the fighter jet had been taking part in strikes against ISIS forces and the pilot was considered one of the best in the country.
The bomb hit several houses in the Iraqi capital’s eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad. News Canada is reporting that a police official is saying three children and two women were among the people killed in the bomb blast. An additional 25 people were wounded, some seriously, according to a medical official at a nearby hospital.
Residents of the Nasiriyah neighborhood described being outside and looking up, seeing the jet fly overhead, and then they heard the explosion.
“I thought the explosion was from a car bomb because we couldn’t imagine that someday a bomb would fall on us from a warplane,” 29-year-old taxi driver Hussein Ali Sahb told NBC News. “[But] when I went out I saw three houses were destroyed and no car was close.”
Like others in the normally quiet neighborhood, Sahb was angry. “I cannot imagine how such stupid pilots are given the chance to fly and kill innocent people,” adding the government should punish the pilot responsible. The Iraqi government has formed a committee to investigate the incident.