MOGADISHU, Somalia — The pilot of a passenger plane that was damaged in an explosion from a suspected bomb over Somalia described on Wednesday how the crew jumped into action to fly the plane back to Mogadishu airport and keep the passengers calm as smoke enveloped the passenger cabin.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Serbian captain Vlatko Vodopivec said he and others were told the explosion that created a hole in the passenger cabin was caused by a bomb, though civil aviation authority officials said Wednesday they had found no evidence so far of a criminal act in Tuesday’s blast aboard the Airbus 321 jetliner.

“It was my first bomb; I hope it will be the last,” the pilot said. He said the blast happened when the plane was at around 11,000 feet (3,350 meters).

“It would have been much worse if we were higher,” he said.

Mohamed Hassan, a police officer in Balad, an agricultural town 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) north of Mogadishu, said residents had found the dead body of a man who might have fallen from the plane.

Daallo Airlines said all passengers except one got off the plane safely, but did not elaborate. It previously said the plane carried 74 passengers.

Abdiwahid Omar, the director of Somalia’s civil aviation authority, told state-run Radio Mogadishu that authorities were not sure if the body found in Balad was the missing passenger.

Cellphone video taken aboard the plane pans from passengers, some wearing oxygen masks, in seats toward the back of the airliner in flight, and then swivels to the empty front area with a hole in the side of the cabin. There is a loud sound of rushing air. The video was taken by Awale Kullane, Somalia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations.

The passengers bunched in the back appear calm. A child wearing an oxygen mask attached to the overhead compartment sits quietly, a blanket covering the legs.