The Boeing 777 appeared to have landed on its belly, and images showed thick black smoke rising into the sky.
Advertisement
Update, 3:55pm: Video has surfaced of the passengers evacuating the aircraft; we’ve added it at the bottom of this post.
An Emirates jetliner arriving from India caught fire after slumping onto the runway in Dubai on Wednesday, killing one firefighter in an intense blaze and bringing the world’s busiest global airport to a halt for several hours.
All passengers and crew were safely evacuated from the aircraft by emergency response teams, according to the government.
The Herald suspects the plane was attempting to make a routine “go around” after deciding to abort the landing on final approach – a procedure for which pilots are well trained.
The world’s busiest global airport was forced to close for a few hours Wednesday after a flight made an emergency landing.
The 282 passengers and 18 crew members were safe and accounted for after the accident, Emirates said, while providing no details about what happened.
In addition to the Thais, onboard were 226 people from India, 24 from Britain, 11 from the Emirates, six from Saudi Arabia and the United States, five from Turkey and four from Ireland.
Emirates carried 51.3 million passengers in 2015 and is the world’s fourth largest carrier in terms of passenger traffic.
After escaping the Boeing 777 by sliding down the evacuation slides with her baby in her arms, Binu says she ran, and ran.
According to the airline, 20 nationalities were represented among the flight’s passengers and crew – 226 Indian nationals, 24 Brits, 11 Emiratis, six USA citizens and six Saudis.
Normal operations at DBX have since resumed, though a number of Emirates flights are still diverted, delayed or cancelled.
“I was shocked when I heard about that”, he said.
Flight EK521, direct from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai, is popular with hundreds of thousands of Kerala residents who work in the Gulf countries.
On board the flight, there were 20 different nationalities, majority were Indian, with six Americans, two Australians, 24 Britons and 11 people from the United Arab Emirates, BBC reports.
During the last five days this 13 years old aircraft took around 60 hours flights.
Fast-growing Emirates is the region’s biggest carrier.
The 777 model is one of the workhorses of Emirates’ fleet.
Advertisement
The Emirates accident follows the crash of a FlyDubai 737-800 jetliner in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, in March that killed all 62 onboard.
