Editor| Image: CNN |
A passenger plane FlyDubai from UAE crash landed at a Russian airport due to poor visibility and high – ground level winds. All the 62 people aboard have been reported dead. Vladimir Puchkov, the Russian Emergencies minister said that the flight FlyDubai Boeing 737 was scheduled to arrive at Rostov-on-Don airport on Saturday 1:20 am.
But it didn’t come down. It was 800 feet away from landing area at 3:50 am. At that time 60 mph winds were recorded. Terrorism has been ruled out as the cause. Oksana Kovrizhnaya, spokeswoman of the investigation committee said that they are looking at 3 possibilities – human error, bad weather and technical issues. Oksana said the investigations might take 2 months at the least.
The pilot kept circling the airport in a hope that weather might clear. After two hours it made an attempt to land and unfortunately the plane’s tail clipped the ground killing the crew and the 55 passengers.
The airport will remain closed tomorrow and the flights are being redirected to Krasnodar. Investigators from UAE will also be joining the Russian investigation team. A team from U.S. National Transportation Safety Board will also come with Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing’s advisors.
Out of 55 passengers, 44 were Russian, 8 Ukranian, 2 Indians and 1 Uzbekistani. There were 18 men, 33 women and 4 children.
Ghaith Al Ghaith, CEO of Flydubai said, “We don’t yet know all the details of the accident but we are working closely with the authorities to establish the cause. We are making every effort to care for those affected and will provide assistance to the loved ones of those on board.”
He also said that both the pilots were quite experienced. Families of the victims will receive $15,000 from the government as reported by the Russian Media. The government has declared Sunday as the day of mourning.
Zainab Asif
Damodar Kalyan
