Emirates plane crash-lands in Dubai, catches fire

DUBAI

An Emirates Airline flight is seen after it crash-landed at Dubai International Airport, the UAE August 3, 2016. REUTERS photo

An Emirates plane with 300 people on board crash-landed and caught fire in Dubai on Aug. 3, shutting down the busy airport, but the authorities said all the passengers were evacuated safely.

The cause of the accident involving a Boeing 777 was not immediately clear, Dubai’s government and the carrier said.

Footage on social media showed thick black smoke billowing from the aircraft.

“An Emirates plane coming from India has been involved in an accident on landing at Dubai International,” the government’s Dubai Media Office said on its Twitter account, according to AFP.

“All passengers were evacuated safely,” it said.

Emirates confirmed the incident.

“We can confirm flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai has been involved in an accident at Dubai International,” the carrier said on its Twitter account.

“We can confirm there are no fatalities among our passengers and crew. All passengers and crew are accounted for and safe,” it said.

Airport authorities halted all operations at Dubai International until further notice, Dubai Airports said on Twitter.

It said later that departures would resume from 6:30 p.m. (02:30 p.m. GMT) “with larger aircraft given first priority.” 

Emirates said that there were 282 passengers and 18 crew members on board, including 226 Indians, 24 Britons and 11 Emirati nationals.

Emirates said it had “no further information on what may have caused the accident.”

“Our priority remains with the passengers and crew involved,” it said.

The director general of the General Civil Aviation Authority, Saif al-Suwaidi, said that investigators had been sent to work with Emirates and the Dubai airport authorities.

A passenger on board, Sharon Maryam Sharji, told Reuters that the accident was “actually really terrifying.”
“As we were landing there was smoke coming out in the cabin,” Sharji said. “People were screaming and we had a very hard landing. We left by going down the emergency slides and as we were leaving on the runway we could see the whole plane catch fire; it was horrifying.”