Footage posted online showed flames bursting out of the front and clouds of black smoke.
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The incident happened at around 9.45am Irish time yesterday when Emirates Flight EK521, travelling from Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, India, crash landed at Dubai.
Traffic at Dubai airport remained disrupted Thursday with 237 flights cancelled, a day after an Emirates plane crash-landed and shut down the Middle East’s busiest airport for several hours.
Saeed thanked the crew members for their efforts in ensuring that all on board were safely evacuated. “Escape”, screamed the crew after opening the emergency exit soon after the landing, said a passenger.
Planes such as Emirates’ Boeing 777-300 are designed so that all passengers can escape within 90 seconds, Quest said.
Some flights were reportedly diverted to Maktoum International Airport or Sharjah International Airport, media reports said.
Government-backed Emirates is the region’s biggest carrier, and operates the world’s largest airline fleet of the wide-body 777 long-haul aircraft.
One firefighter, identified as Jassim Essa Al-Baloushi, was killed battling the fire – the Dubai government’s media office said he died “saving the lives of others”.
Sheikh Ahmed later told reporters later that 13 people on board were hospitalized, majority for minor injuries.
There were 275 passengers and crew on board and the video show you how hard is realize an evac procedure on a plane on fire. The capacity of the Emirates flight is for carrying over 300 passengers.
Of the 282 passengers and 18 crew, 226 were of Indian nationality, while there were 23 Britons and 11 from the United Arab Emirates, according to figures published by Emirates.
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Describing the disruption at the airport, he said: “Due to the incident, the airport was closed for approximately five and a half hours until 6.30pm local time”.
