A fire erupted on board when it touched down, and while all 300 passengers and crew were evacuated safely, a firefighter died while extinguishing the blaze.
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“As a result, for August 4, 2016, Jet Airways has cancelled four flights from India to Dubai along with their corresponding return flights”, a Jet Airways spokesperson said in a statement.
“Post the runway closure at Dubai airport yesterday, our yesterday’s flights to the city had been diverted to Al Maktoum International Airport, Ras Al Khaimah International Airport and Sharjah International Airport”. The majority of those on board were Indian nationals, it added. After Dubai International Airport closed its airspace for about an hour because of unauthorised drone activity, the local Khaleej Times quoted Michael Rudolph, head of aviation regulations and safety at the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, as saying earlier this year that for every minute the airport stayed shut, the Dubai economy lost about $1 million.
Once emergency response teams managed to extinguish the fire it was clear how deadly this accident could have been: the entire top half of the aircraft’s fuselage was missing, with the belly of the plane slumped on the tarmac. That would possibly lead to a fire, he said.
“Airlines plan for this sort of thing”.
Passengers have said that the pilot had warned them of problems with the landing gear and said that he would be making an emergency landing. “And this clearly appears to be what has happened”.
“We can confirm flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai has been involved in an accident at Dubai International”, the airline posted on its official Twitter account.
All flights to and from Dubai International Airport were suspended after an Emirates flight with 282 passengers, including 24 Britons, crash-landed on the runway.
Dubai (DXB) is now the busiest worldwide airport for global passengers.
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“Due to reduced capacity we are having to prioritise arriving and departing flights to make the best use of available runway to clear the backlog”, the facility’s operator, Dubai Airports, said in a statement.
