Update | Firefighter killed battling blaze from Emirates flight after hard landing in Dubai airport
Fourteen people were taken to hospital but all passengers and crew evacuated safely
One firefighter died battling an intense blaze from an Emirates jetliner which crash-landed and caught fire in Dubai on Wednesday, shutting down the world’s busiest airport for hours as the authorities said all of the 300 passengers were evacuated safely.
The firefighter was killed trying to put out the flames from the accident, Emirates airline chairman and CEO Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum told a news conference on Wednesday.
The cause of the accident involving the Boeing 777 was not immediately clear, Dubai’s government and the carrier said.
“It was actually really terrifying. As we were landing there was smoke coming out in the cabin,” said passenger 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. It was horrifying.”
Another passenger leaving the airport with his family said there had been a problem with the landing gear.
A spokesman for operator Dubai Airports said everyone aboard flight EK521 coming from Thiruvananthapuram in southern India had been evacuated.
#Dubai| moment Flt #EK521 came to rest. Appears starboard engine separated from fuselage @FlightAlerts777 pic.twitter.com/9kRJdYKfMF— Mikey Kay (@MikeyKayNYC) August 3, 2016