Iraq News Now

Small plane crashes near Dubai’s busy airport, killing 4

Small plane crashes near Dubais busy airport killing
Small plane crashes near Dubai’s busy airport, killing 4

2019-05-17 00:00:00 - Source: Baghdad Post

A small plane involved in upgrading a runway at Dubai

International Airport crashed Thursday night, killing four people and halting

traffic at the world’s busiest airport for international travel for nearly an

hour, AP reported.

Authorities gave no explanation for what caused the crash of

the Diamond DA62 aircraft with a tail number belonging to Flight Calibrations

Service Ltd. of Shoreham, England.

The UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority said the three

British citizens and one South African on the plane were killed.

Early Friday morning, police, paramedics and flight

investigators worked at the crash site, some 8 kilometers (5 miles) southeast

of the airport in Mushrif Park near the city-state’s water reservoirs. Police

told Associated Press journalists they could not visit the crash site, which

was hidden from view by sand dunes.

The airport, home to long-haul carrier Emirates, is the

world’s busiest for international travel. It halted flights from 7:36 p.m.

until 8:22 p.m. over the crash.

Flight Calibrations Service announced in November it signed

a contract to work on the airport’s “navaids,” the beacons around an airport

that show pilots where runways are and how to land on them. Dubai International

Airport later told The Associated Press that the plane “was being used to

calibrate the approach systems” at the airport.

An employee at Flight Calibrations Services, which has two

Diamond DA62s stationed in the United Arab Emirates, declined to comment on the

crash Thursday night.

The work comes as Dubai has shut down its southern runway

for resurfacing and replacing the light and support infrastructure. It closed

on April 16 and officials hope to reopen it on May 30.

Dubai has cut back on some of its scheduled flights and

redirected others to Al Maktoum Airport at Dubai World Central, the city’s

second airport.

Dubai is a major city in the United Arab Emirates, a

federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.

The city-state’s last major aircraft incident happened on

Aug. 3, 2016. An Emirates Boeing 777-300 coming from Thiruvananthapuram, India,

crash landed, but no lives were lost among its 300 passengers and crew. A

firefighter was killed in a subsequent explosion of Flight EK521.





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