Saturday, March 19, 2016
By Yuliya Fedorinova and Deena Kamel
A jet operated by Middle Eastern budget carrier FlyDubai crashed in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don Saturday morning, killing all 62 people on board.
Flight FZ981 broke apart as it hit the ground while trying to land at 3:40 a.m., killing 55 passengers and 7 crew, Russia’s Investigative Committee, which answers directly to President Vladimir Putin, said on its website. FlyDubai said that there are unlikely to be any survivors at the site, located about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) south of Moscow.
The plane was making a repeat attempt to land in poor weather conditions when its wing touched the runway, leading the aircraft to break apart and burst into flames, The Rostov branch of the Emergencies Ministry said. The airport will remain closed until midnight, airport spokeswoman Olga Ladeyschikova said by phone.
“We are working with the local emergency services and other agencies who are at the scene,” FlyDubai said in a statement. "At this moment our thoughts and prayers are with the families of our passengers and crew who were on board the aircraft.”
Preliminary numbers on the passenger list showed 33 women, 18 men, 4 children and 7 crew on the Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The passengers were mostly Russian, with Ukrainian, Uzbek and Indian nationals also on board, Rossiya 24 reported, without saying where it got the information.
Billionaire Group
The airport is operated by a unit of billionaire Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova Group. It has two runways and serves more than 2 million passengers per year on domestic and international flights. The city is located near the Black Sea and not far from the border with Ukraine. Body parts have been found near the wreckage, Interfax reported, citing Igor Oder, head of the southern region branch of the Emergency Ministry.
In between the FlyDubai jet’s first attempt to land and the crash, another plane made three landing efforts and then diverted, FlightRadar 24, which tracks airline movements, said in a Twitter posting. FlyDubai’s Boeing jet was delivered in 2011, it said.
Boeing is aware of the incident and is gathering further details, the planemaker said in an e-mailed statement. The 737 is the workhorse of the global airline fleet and the single-aisle jet is Boeing’s biggest source of profit.
The airline had departed Dubai International airport at 18.20 GMT on Friday and was due to land that evening at 22.40 GMT.
FlyDubai, owned by the government of Dubai, is one of two no-frills airlines in the United Arab Emirates. It began operations in 2009 and currently has an all-Boeing fleet of 50 aircraft with a network of about 90 destinations. The airline flies out of Terminal 2 in Dubai International Airport and the emirates’ second hub Al Maktoum International Airport. It competes with Sharjah-based Air Arabia in the U.A.E.
The year 2015 was pronounced as one of the safest years for airlines globally by the International Air Transport Association. The number of fatal accidents fell by two thirds last year, excluding more than 300 deaths resulting from a pilot suicide and possible terror attack.
There were four fatal accidents, all involving turboprop aircraft, in 2015, down from 12 a year earlier, IATA said in February. These killed 136 people. The 374 dead passengers and crew from the crash of Germanwings 9525 by a suicidal pilot and Metrojet 9268 on suspected terrorism have been excluded because they are classified as deliberate acts of unlawful interference, the group said.