Share

Passengers: Dubai pilot announced crash landing

An Emirates flight appeared to catch fire while making an emergency landing at Dubai International airport on Wednesday.

Advertisement

Photographs posted on social media showed a plane lying crumpled on its belly on the tarmac with black smoke pouring from its upper section.

Twitter users have posted photos of the incident which shows black smoke surrounding the plane.

Emirates confirmed the incident, saying that the plane was a Boeing 777.

A company representative reached by Al Arabiya English said they could not comment further on the accident, but that all passengers and crew are safe.

Investigators from the authority are working with Emirates and Dubai International Airport to determine the cause of the accident which left thirteen injured, officials said.

The accident happened as Flight EK521 was arriving from the southern Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram. According to a statement from Dubai-based Emirates, there were no fatalities among 282 passengers and 18 crew on board.

A total of 22 flights departing from Dubai International were cancelled as a result of the incident, in part because the plane was blocking a runway.

On July 26, an Emirates Boeing 777-300 aircraft heading to the Maldives made an emergency landing in Mumbai because of a “technical fault”.

Dubai International is the world’s busiest airport in terms of international passenger traffic.

The plane departed from Trivandrum International Airport in India.

Emirates’ home base in Dubai is used as transfer point for thousands of passengers travelling between Australia and Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Thiruvananthapuram is the capital of the southwestern Indian state of Kerala.

In 2009, an Emirates plane flying from Melbourne to Dubai failed to take off properly and hit a number of structures on the runway.

Tracking websites identified it as Flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram, India, to Dubai, and the aircraft as a Boeing 777-300 that was delivered to the airline in 2003.

Advertisement

“Our main priority now is the safety and well-being of all involved”, it said.

AFP  File  Warwan Naamani The Emirates Boeing 777 was carrying 282 passengers and 18 crew members