Dubai airport resumes normal operation after flight’s crash-landing

“Dubai Airports confirms that it has lifted all remaining capacity restrictions at DXB (Dubai International) and the airport is back to normal operations,” the operator said in a statement. One of the world’s busiest airport and the Middle East’s busiest had operated with restricted capacity since 12:45 PM on Wednesday after an Emirates Boeing 777-300 aircraft caught fire on the runway shortly after landing.

The airport was then closed for several hours that day and then operated with only one of its two runways for 29 hours until Thursday evening. Dubai Airports yesterday said it would “continue to work with our airline partners and stakeholders in order to ensure” remaining affected passengers could reach their destination “as soon as possible”. At least 21 airlines cancelled 109 flights yesterday to and from cities in China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, according to the Dubai Airports website.

Those flight disruptions mainly impacted foreign carriers operating out of Terminal 1. Flydubai, the airport’s second biggest operator after Emirates, cancelled flights to Arbil and Basra.

On Thursday, Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths said the investigators had recovered the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.

An investigation led by the United Arab Emirates’ federal aviation authority, GCAA, is underway to determine what caused the 13-year-old Emirates jet to crash land. .

Passengers described scenes at the airport on Thursday, the day after the incident, as “chaotic” telling Gulf News they had to transfer to Abu Dhabi International to catch their flights. All 300 escaped the aircraft before it was destroyed by the fire on the edge of the airport’s second runway. 

Emirates chairman and chief executive said on Wednesday, the Emirati and Australian pilots 

have attempted to abort the landing due to wind shear, which is a sudden change in direction. Data released from flight tracking website flightradar 24 appears to support this theory, Gulf News reported.