Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT (Reuters) - A Nigerian man linked to al Qaeda tried to set off an explosive device aboard a U.S. passenger plane as it approached Detroit on Friday, but was overpowered by passengers and crew and the aircraft landed safely, officials said.

The suspect suffered extensive burns and was taken into custody. The passengers, two of whom suffered minor injuries, disembarked safely from the Delta Air Lines plane, which had departed from Amsterdam.

"We believe this was an attempted act of terrorism," a White House official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

President Barack Obama is on vacation in Hawaii and was monitoring the situation after conferring with Homeland Security and National Security Council officials.

Representative Peter King of New York, the senior Republican on the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said the explosive device was "fairly sophisticated," and the suspect was a 23-year-old Nigerian.

Federal officials identified the man as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, according to The New York Times and the Washington Post. ABC News and NBC News reported that he attends University College London, where he studied engineering.

Abdulmutallab tried to ignite the device or mixture as the aircraft was approaching Detroit.

"When it did go off, he himself was seriously injured. He has third-degree burns," King told Fox News. ... (The device) "appears to be different from what we've encountered before."

King told CNN the suspect "did appear in a database as far as having a terrorist connection. ... My understanding is ... that he does have al Qaeda connections, certainly extremist terrorist connections, and his name popped up pretty quickly" in a search of intelligence data bases.

SUSPECT BADLY BURNED

The suspect was not on a "no-fly" list, which might have kept him off the plane, but his name was in a database indicating "a significant terrorist connection," King said.

"He was severely burned. His entire leg was burned. They required a fire extinguisher as well as water to put it out," passenger Melinda Dennis told NBC News.

"You could smell the smoke when we landed. You could smell the scent of something being burned when we landed."

Another passenger, Richelle Keepman, said the incident was "terrifying."

"I thought -- I think we all thought we weren't going to land, we weren't going to make it," Keepman told NBC.

Once on the ground, the aircraft was moved to a remote area at Detroit's airport where all baggage was being rescreened, said the Transportation Security Administration.