According to NBC news, Emirates confirmed that Flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram, India to Dubai was “involved in an accident” at the airport at around 12:45 p.m. local time (4:45 a.m. ET) adding that 282 passengers and 18 crew members were aboard.
Emirates airline 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.
“Our main priority now is the safety and well-being of all involved,” the airline said on Twitter.
Passengers on planes landing at the airport at the time looked on in horror.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was absolutely horrified,” Sarah-Louise Sherwood told the BBC.
“The slides came out but they were blowing all over the place. People managed to escape – from what I saw – before there was a big explosion, with flames everywhere. We had taxied and stopped right next to where it was happening and people in my plane were just saying ‘oh my god’ and ‘get us off this plane’,” she said.
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.
The Emirates chairman told a press conference that evacuation procedures were executed professionally and the cabin crew were the last to leave the plane.