Passengers escape but firefighter dies in Dubai plane crash

10:51 am on 4 August 2016

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

The Boeing 777 was extensively damaged. Photo: AFP

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.

Footage from inside Dubai plane crash shows travellers' terror as they escape https://t.co/WI0yvltUeB pic.twitter.com/2Xps2vWd9l
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) August 3, 2016

Firefighter dies after Dubai plane crash https://t.co/s4uNeTVSZh pic.twitter.com/2JdaPmtEjA
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) August 3, 2016

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

Thirteen people had suffered minor injuries, he said.

A passenger on board the plane told Reuters news agency that the experience was terrifying.

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

Some unconfirmed reports suggest 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.