Air tragedy: 62 perish as Dubai plane goes down in Russia

Crash happened as budget carrier made second attempt to land in strong wind

DUBAI/ MOSCOW:

All 62 people aboard a passenger jet flying from Dubai to southern Russia were killed when their plane crashed on its second attempt to land at Rostov-on-Don airport on Saturday.

Russia's emergencies ministry said the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 operated by Dubai-based budget carrier Flydubai, crashed at 3:40am. Most of those on board were Russian.

“The aircraft hit the ground and broke into pieces,” the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement on its website. “There were 55 passengers aboard and seven crew members. They all died.”

Both of the plane's flight recorders have been recovered undamaged, the committee said in a statement.

According to the independent US-based Flight Safety Foundation, there was strong wind at the airport with a speed of 43km/h, with gusts up to 69km/h, but visibility was reasonable. “Different versions of what happened are being looked into, including crew error, a technical failure and bad weather conditions,” the committee said.

Flydubai CEO Ghaith al Ghaith told a news conference in the Gulf Arab emirate that it was too early to determine the cause of the crash. “We will have information about the circumstances of the incident and the black box in the future, and an investigation is being conducted in cooperation with the Russian authorities and we are waiting to see the results,” he said.

Sergei Melnichenko, head of Aviation Safety consultancy in Moscow, said so far little speaks for an act of terrorism. "Nothing points to that," Melnichenko said. "But nothing can be fully ruled out until a complete decryption of the flight recorders is done."

Dubai's civil aviation authority said it was sending an investigative team to Russia, president Ismail al Hosani told reporters.

The Flydubai airline had a clean safety record before the accident. It started flying in June 2009, with a fleet of new Boeing 737s, one of the world's most widely flown planes. It suffered an incident when one of its planes was shot at while landing at Baghdad airport on Jan 27, 2015. The aircraft that crashed was just over five years old.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2016.