Dramatic footage shows the aircraft exploding in a fireball on the runway, with the force of the blast throwing a huge panel from the plane into the air. Separate video captures the moment it scrapes along the runway before coming to a halt in a cloud of smoke.
Incredibly, all passengers, including 24 Britons, six Americans, four from Ireland and two Australians, were evacuated safely within minutes of landing before the plane was engulfed in flames.
Photographs of the incident showed a plane lying crumpled on its belly on the tarmac with black smoke pouring from its upper section while more video shows passengers running to safety at the terminal having been evacuated.
The captain is believed to have sent out and emergency signal in the moments before the plane was preparing to land.
A pilot who witnessed flight EK521 landing told NDTV the plane came in 'really hard' and hit the 'runway tail'. A passenger on another plane said she could see emergency chutes deployed.
All flights to the Dubai terminal have been diverted while emergency crews work at the scene. All take-offs and landings have been suspended.
Passengers evacuated from the plane say that minutes before the flight crash-landed at Dubai airport, the pilot made an announcement that he needed to make an emergency landing amid problems with the landing gear.
Cabin crew then opened all the emergency exits of the plane and all 300 passengers and crew on board the aircraft were evacuated 'within minutes of the landing'.
Dubai resident Girisankal Gangadhakan said his wife called him after the plane landed to tell him that she and their three children onboard had been involved in an accident but were safe.
'I was shocked when I heard about that,' he said.
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. He says many are in shock, and that only one person - a crew member - had been taken to the hospital for treatment.
Chris Galusha landed at Dubai Airport just 25 minutes before the plane crash landed, which has caused four to five hours of delays.
‘The board is slowly updating major delays. Cannot see anything from terminal at this time,’ he tweeted MailOnline, alongside a picture of the departure screen showing all flights as delayed.
‘Airport is quiet right now. Calm before storm before people deplane,’ he tweeted.
In one video posted online a woman with a British accent can be heard gasping as she watched from the terminal.
‘Are there people in that plane? Oh my god, the smoke’s getting darker,’ she says.
According to air traffic control recordings cited by Aviation Herald, a respected independent website specialising in information on air accidents, controllers at Dubai had reminded the crew of the Boeing 777 to lower the landing gear as it came into approach.
Shortly afterwards, the crew announced they were aborting the landing to "go around," a routine procedure for which pilots are well trained, but the aircraft came to rest near the end of the runway instead, Aviation Herald reported.
There was no immediate confirmation on whether the landing gear was extended when the aircraft touched the ground.
Eye-witnesses described seeing plumes of smoke coming from the jet moments before it crashed down
No comments:
Post a Comment