All 300 people, mostly Indians, aboard an Emirates airliner survived a crash landing in Dubai on Wednesday, scrambling down emergency slides before flames consumed the plane in an accident that halted flights for hours.
One firefighter was killed battling the blaze.
Minutes later, the crash-landing had closed the world’s busiest airport, diverting flights for long-haul carrier Emirates and others across the UAE and into other countries.
Dubai International is by far the Mideast’s busiest airport, and is the world’s busiest air hub in terms of international passenger traffic. It handled some 78 million passengers last year.
No flights have left Dubai International Airport since 12:47 pm after an Emirates plane crash-landed on the runway.
The airport has just said that operations will resume at 6:30 pm local time, with priority given to larger aircrafts.
Air services on the Chennai-Dubai sector were not restored on Thursday. Three airlines cancelled their flights following the crash landing, airport authorities said. “Two flights, each belonging to Jet Airways and Indigo, in Chennai-Dubai route were cancelled this morning,” they said.
Similarly, SpiceJet said all its flights on this route have been cancelled.
The incident was the most serious ever for Emirates, which has grown at a breakneck pace over the last three decades and turned its hometown of Dubai into a major long-haul international air hub. It was the second major air disaster for a Dubai government-backed airline in less than five months.
(With inputs from PTI and AP)
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