Altogether 300 people, including 18 crew members, were on board, all of whom are reported safe.
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“Dubai airports confirms that a total of 116 arriving flights and 121 departing flights were cancelled and a total of 44 inbound flights were diverted to neighbouring airports”, they said.
In its statement, IndiGo said, “Due to unavailability of runway at Dubai airport, all IndiGo flights operating to and fro India stands cancelled for August 4, 2016”. Emirates says all passengers due to travel in the next 24hrs, are being advised to visit Flight Status to check the status of their flight.
“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”.
Indian airline Indigo tweeted that all its flights to and from Dubai are cancelled for the day. After the incident, Dubai International Airport was closed for about six hours.
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.
Dubai Airports said, “To ensure the comfort of passengers waiting for their flights, all food outlets across DXB and DWC are providing free refreshments and water, while free unlimited Wi-Fi has been made available at Dubai International to enable passengers to stay in touch with their family and friends”.
Dubai International Airport is expected to be on recovery mode for the next 48 hours with efforts in full swing to clear backlogged flights.
All passengers and crew were evacuated from the Boeing 777-300, which flew in from Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, India.
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The person holding the camera could be seen jumping on to one of the plane’s emergency slides and the final seconds of the video show passengers landing on each other and then running on to the flames started to engulf the plane’s engine underneath the right wing. He said the plane had undergone maintenance in 2015 and that the United Arab Emirates pilot had over 7,000 hours of flying experience.
