Flight EK521, direct from Thiruvananthapuram India to Dubai has crash-landed at the Dubai International Airport. Thankfully all 300 passengers and crews onboard the plane got out safely.
A passenger on the flight said that minutes before the flight crash-landed, the pilot announced that he needed to make an emergency landing.
The Boeing 777 was said to have landed on its belly and there were images that showed the aircraft not having its landing gear out. This has led to a few speculation on why the crash happened. However, it is not clear yet as to why the landing wheels were not down, although an independent website specialising in information on air accidents indeed suggested a problem with the landing gear.
The plane was engulfed in thick black fumes and some amateur videos even caught the aircraft spitting a fireball.
It is indeed amazing that no one was hurt in the incident. I mean, just look at the aftermath of the plane.
Image credit: EPA
The Dubai government media office said all passengers were safely evacuated and so far there were no injuries reported.
Flights at the Dubai airport were suspended for a few hours before resuming its operations again.
Emirates airline reported 282 passengers and 18 crew on board from 20 nationalities, most of them Indian, with 24 Britons and 11 people from the United Arab Emirates.
Image credit: Reuters
A passenger on board the plane was interview by Reuters and described how the whole experience was terrifying – even mentioning how their plane caught fire right after everyone was evacuated. Phewww!
“As we were landing there was smoke coming out in the cabin,” said Sharon Maryam Sharji.
“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.”
The incident happened on Wednesday 09.52am BST. Investigations are currently being carried out to identify the exact cause of the crash-landing.
