The plane, arriving from India, caught fire after slumping onto the runway in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday (August 3), killing one firefighter in an intense blaze and bringing the world’s busiest global airport to a halt for several hours.
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All 300 passengers and crew were safely evacuated in under 90 seconds. Thirteen people suffered minor injuries.
Flight operations to Dubai remained affected for the second day on Thursday due to the non-availability of the runway at Dubai International Airport after Wednesday’s mishap involving an Emirates flight, with low-priced carriers SpiceJet and IndiGo cancelling flights on Thursday to Dubai.
Video posted online shows black smoke billowing from what looked like an Emirates jetliner lying on its belly on the runway.
Dubai International airport, the world’s third-busiest, closed minutes after the crash-landing and diverted flights for long-haul carrier Emirates and others across the UAE and into other countries.
A video shot by an amateur from inside the plane shows how the passengers ignored warning and evacuation signs by the airplane crew and tried to reach their belongings, despite being an emergency.
The airport resumed operations with reduced capacity around four hours after a Boeing 777 flying from India with 300 people on board crash-landed and caught fire. It was later confirmed a Dubai firefighter died whilst tackling the blaze.
Emirates said that passengers holding tickets purchased on or before August 3, 2016 can rebook or cancel their bookings at no charge.
The accident occurred Wednesday was the most unsafe ever for Emirates, which has grown at a breakneck pace over the last three decades and turned its hometown of Dubai into a major long-haul worldwide air hub.
Iype Vallikadan, a reporter from India’s Mathrubhumi News, was told by passengers that the pilot spoke to them as the plane neared Dubai to say there was a problem with the landing gear and that he would make an emergency landing.
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275 passengers and crew were on board of Emirates flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai which was involved in the incident.
