Indian passengers (foreground) who said they were aboard the Emirati plane that caught fire the previous day during a crash-landing, wait for their flight at the departures hall at Dubai airport, on August 4, 2016.
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The reaction of passengers and crew on an Emirates jetliner, seconds after the plane had crash-landed and seconds before it the fuselage was engulfed in a ball of flame, is caught on video obtained by Reuters.
A Boeing 777 of Emirates Airline, flying from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai, made an emergency landing at 12.45 local time (0845 GMT) at Dubai International Airport.
Footage from an Emirates plane that crash-landed in Dubai before bursting into flames that shows scenes of panic surfaced on Social Media on Thursday.
“The Australian consulate in Dubai is urgently seeking to contact any Australians affected by the emergency landing of an Emirates aircraft in Dubai”, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday.
The fire erupted on board the aircraft after the incident, he said, adding that the cause was not yet clear.
HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates’ Chairman & CEO said in a press conference that the airline is now cooperating fully with the authorities to try and determine exactly what caused the incident.
A spokesperson for the Dubai media office, which represents the Emirate’s government, said flight EK521 was arriving on schedule from India when it “crash-landed”.
Emirates, the world’s biggest airline by worldwide traffic, said it expects schedule disruptions for the next 36 hours.
He claimed during the World Aviation Safety Summit in April that for every minute the airport is shut, the cost to Dubai’s economy is $1m. “Many of us now feel we have breathing problems because of the smoke”, said the passenger. Passengers on planes landing at the airport at the time of the crash were shocked.
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Emirates said it expected an eight-hour network-wide delay in its operations. The carrier scrapped 27 flights and diverted another 23 to locations including the U.A.E. emirates of Sharjah, Fujairah and Al Ain as well as the capitals of the nearby countries of Oman and Bahrain.
