UAE: Emirates Crash In Dubai

An Emirates plane has crash-landed at Dubai International Airport and caught fire.

All 300 people on board were able to escape from the burning aircraft, but a firefighter was killed tackling the blaze.

The Boeing 777 appeared to have landed on its belly, and images showed thick black smoke rising into the sky.

Emirates chairman Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum paid tribute to the firefighter who lost his life fighting the blaze.

The aircraft was flying to Dubai from the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Flights to and from the airport were suspended for several hours but have now resumed.

The Emirates chairman told a press conference that evacuation procedures were executed professionally and the cabin crew were the last to leave the plane.

Thirteen people had suffered minor injuries, he said.

"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."

Emirates said there were 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.

The captain and the first officer have over 7,000 hours of flying experience each, the airline said.

The pilots and crew were the last to abandon the aircraft, Al Maktoum said, praising the "maximum level of professionalism they have demonstrated."

Dubai airport, which was closed following the accident and all departures and arrivals halted, re-opened at 6:30 pm local time (14:30 GMT), according to Dubai Airports.

The escaping passengers were then taken to a corner of the tarmac where some were being treated for their injuries.

The aircraft is sitting on the ground without its landing gear, but it is not clear why the wheels are not down.

The crew were making a normal, rather than an emergency approach, when air traffic controllers told them to abandon the landing and start climbing again, for unknown reasons.

Whatever the cause, it is a testament to the crew that they got everyone off the plane.

Flight EK521, direct from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai, is popular with hundreds of thousands of Kerala residents who work in the Gulf countries.

Emirates is the Middle East's biggest airline, and has an excellent safety record.

It ranked seventh in a survey of the world's safest airlines by AirlineRatings.com, an independent plane safety website.

Dubai International Airport is a major transport hub, one of the world's busiest for international passengers, operating with only two runways.