Dubai incident

Three hundred passengers and crew were led to safety at Dubai International Airport on Wednesday (3 August) after an Emirates Boeing 777-300 on a flight from India caught fire after an apparent emergency landing.

A firefighter was killed and 13 people suffered minor injuries but observers said the fact nobody on board died was a miracle. The airport was able to return to normal operation within six hours of the accident, which Emirates CEO Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said was not a security incident.

All passengers and crew were evacuated before the aircraft caught fire, he added.

Dubai's media office confirmed that emergency response teams at the airport fully extinguished the fire on the plane within two hours of the crash-landing.

Sheikh Ahmed said the aircraft may have aborted its initial landing due to wind-shear but told media to wait for the full investigation report.

He declined to speculate further on the cause of the accident, including why the landing gear seemed to be retracted. He added: “I don’t want to give you something which is not 100% transparent.”

A former pilot was asked how passengers could be evacuated so quickly: “Multiple trials and scenarios are practised by cabin crew before they are allowed to take flights. They are trained in getting passengers out within 90sec.” www.emirates.com

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OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum

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Tony Keane, Ireland

The only 'fly in the ointment' was the number of passengers who took their hand-baggage down the chutes despite the entreties of the cabin crew! All sympathies to the CFR crews on the death of their colleague trapped when fuel ignited.

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