• 1.30pm – Emirates confirms that a flight from India was involved in an accident at Dubai International Airport. Online videos show black smoke billowing from what looked like an Emirates aircraft sitting on its belly on the runway. Emirates says its "main priority now is the safety and well-being of all involved".
• 2.25pm – Dubai Media Office confirms that emergency teams are responding to a crash landing at Dubai International Airport, and that all passengers and crew have been safely taken off.
• 2.30pm – Ismail Abdel Wahed, executive director for the air accident investigation sector at the GCAA, says crash investigators were making their way to the scene. Once there, they would interview those involved and collect data from the aircraft's black box flight recorder. Plans would also be made to move the aircraft off the runway to allow more detailed inspection of the wreckage.
• 2.50pm – Emirates confirms there were no fatalities on the flight. "All passengers and crew are accounted for and safe," it said. It said the number of people onboard the flight was 300, saying there were 282 passengers and 18 crew.
• 3pm – Dubai Airports announces that all arrivals and departures have been suspended at the airport until further notice following the incident with flight EK521.
• 3.20pm – Passengers from EK521 report that the pilot announced that they would be making an emergency landing minutes before it crashed. Indian media reports say passengers were warned that there was a problem with the landing gear. Passengers say cabin crew opened all the emergency exits and the aircraft was evacuated within minutes of landing.
• 3.30pm – Emirates says 300 people from 20 countries were aboard the Boeing 777. These included 11 Emiratis, 226 from India and 24 Britons. There were six people each from the United States and Saudi Arabia, five from Turkey and four from Ireland. Two people each came from Australia, Brazil, Germany, Malaysia and Thailand, and one each from Croatia, Egypt, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, Philippines, South Africa, Switzerland and Tunisia. T P Seetharam, the Indian ambassador to the UAE, says Indian diplomats went to the airport and met many of the passengers. He reports that one person – a crew member – was taken to hospital for treatment.
• 5.20pm – Dubai Airports says the airport will restart departure operations from 6.30pm, with larger aircraft given priority.
• 6.30pm - Flights to and from Dubai International Airport resume with first plane landing from Chicago.
newsdesk@thenational.ae
*with reporting from Associated Press
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