300 passengers and crew of Emirates aircraft are all safe after it made an emergency landing at Dubai International Airport, Wednesday.
Emirates plane catches fire after it crash-landed at Dubai airport. Thick plumes of black smoke rose from the burning plane, but no injuries were recorded.
Flight EK521 was from Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, India to Dubai on Wednesday when it landed at the airport. It caught fire after all passengers and crew were evacuated from the airplane.
“We can confirm flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram [in Kerala] to Dubai has been involved in an accident at Dubai International,” Emirates official statement said.
There were 282 passengers and 18 crew on board the aircraft.
Dubai airport sources said all passengers and crew were accounted for and there are no fatalities recorded. No one is also reported injured. All passengers were escorted to a safe place at the airport and extreme efficiency and care were observed.
The area was immediately cordoned off so that nobody cannot come close to it. All landings and take-offs were also delayed for almost four hours.
All flights diverted to Maktoum International Airport, the airline official Facebook page said.
Anxious relatives waited to see the passengers on the affected plane at the waiting area of the arrival terminal.
According to some aviation experts, the event was unusual especially that Emirates operate an entirely long haul fleet. The aircraft was coming in on a steady and normal textbook approach to the airport, which is very congested. Looking at the shocking photos, the landing gear is nowhere to be seen.
Photos of the stricken Boeing 777 airliner indicate that the front landing gear may have collapsed and that the plane slid that would possibly lead to a fire.
Dubai-based Emirates is the largest airline in the world by available seat kilometers.
The aircraft was a Boeing 777-300 and delivered in March 2003.
