Dubai airport, the world’s busiest in terms of worldwide passengers, resumed flights on Wednesday (Aug 3) after a almost four-hour shutdown caused by an accident involving an Emirates plane, authorities said.
Advertisement
“Emirates is fully collaborating with local authorities to determine the cause of the incident”, the airline said in a statement.
The Boeing 777 appeared to have landed on its belly, and images showed thick black smoke rising into the sky.
A Boeing 777 of Emirates Airline, flying from Thiruvananthapuram, India, to Dubai, made an emergency landing at 12:45 local time (0845 GMT) at Dubai International Airport.
An Emirates plane from India has crash-landed in Dubai overnight with 300 passengers and crew on board.
The Boeing 777 aircraft departed from Trivandrum International Airport in India on August 3 and was scheduled to land at Dubai International Airport at 12:50 p.m. local time.
All 282 passengers and 18 crew survived but a firefighter battling the blaze died.
CEO and chairman of the Emirates Group, Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, said: “I can confirm that the aircraft (was) up to date in inspection, checks and all of that”. “Our priority remains with the passengers and crew involved”, it said. Thomas Abraham, a Thiruvananthapuram-based businessman, said he watched in horror as the right engine tore off with a bang seconds after the hard landing.
Sai Bhaskar, a passenger, said there were no alerts as such to the passengers.
Iype Vallikadan, a reporter from Indian newspaper Mathrubhumi News, told the Associated Press that passengers said the pilot spoke to them as the plane neared Dubai, saying there was a problem with the landing gear and that he would make an emergency landing.
Controllers at Dubai International had had to remind pilots on the Boeing 777 to lower the landing gear as it came into land, according to the respected Aviation Herald, which monitors air accidents.
T.P. Seetharam, the Indian ambassador to the UAE, says Indian diplomats have been dispatched to the airport and had met directly with many passengers.
Emirates’ typically bustling base in the gleaming Terminal 3 was hushed after the accident.
All of those on board, including 24 Britons and six Americans, were led to safety at Dubai International Airport, minutes before the Boeing 777 was completely destroyed in a massive fireball.
The route is popular with hundreds of thousands of people from southern India who work in the Gulf countries.
Emirates carried 51.3 million passengers in 2015 and is the world’s fourth largest carrier in terms of passenger numbers adjusted for the length of each trip.
Fast-growing Emirates is the region’s biggest carrier.
Advertisement
Both the airline and aircraft have a solid safety record. Emirates confirmed the incident.
