Chaos inside Emirates plane that crash-landed in Dubai

On Wednesday, Emirates’s Boeing 777 skidded off the runway at Dubai International Airport and burst into flames.

Normal flight operations between India and Dubai have been affected following the crash of the Thiruvananthapuam-Dubai flight at the Dubai airport on Wednesday afternoon.

Delays and flight cancellations persisted Thursday at Dubai International Airport, a day after an Emirates airliner suffered a crash-landing that saw all 300 people onboard survive while a firefighter was killed.

A spokesperson for operator Dubai Airports said all passengers and crew aboard flight EK521 coming from Thiruvananthapuram had been evacuated and emergency services were managing the situation.

“Apologies for inconvenience. All to/from Dubai flights stands cancelled for today”, SpiceJet also tweeted. Fly Dubai’s 2.50 am flight to Dubai on Thursday morning has also been cancelled, Kochi airport sources said.

Traffic was disrupted by cancellation of 237 flights after an Emirates plane crash-landed and closed down the Dubai International Airport for several hours.

A video shot by an amateur from inside the plane shows how the passengers ignored warning and evacuation signs by the airplane crew and tried to reach their belongings, despite being an emergency.

He claimed during the World Aviation Safety Summit in April that for every minute the airport is shut, the cost to Dubai’s economy is $1m.

Emirates Group CEO and chairman Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said that the accident may have been caused by a mechanical failure affecting the plane’s landing gear. “When smoke engulfed the flight, we realised there was something amiss and we felt there was some danger”, he said.

The airport has restart departure flights at 18.30 local time (1430 GMT).

The airline said that it has already notified passengers about their respective flight status through various channels. Some inbound flights were diverted to other regional airports.

Passengers holding tickets purchased on or before 3 August can re-book or cancel their bookings at no charge, Emirates said.