MOSCOW (Web Desk) – At least 62 passengers and crew have died after a FlyDubai plane crashed during an attempted landing in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, officials said.
A Russian investigative committee confirmed in a statement that all 62 people on board the plane, travelling from Dubai, were killed in the crash on Saturday morning.
The FlyDubai Boeing 737-800, coming from Dubai, missed the runway as it attempted to land at 03:50 local time (00:50 GMT) on Saturday.
It is not clear what caused the crash but poor visibility and high winds are being considered as a factor. There were reports of a fire or an explosion on board, the BBC reported.
Reports say the plane abandoned its initial attempt to land and circled for two hours before crashing at the second attempt.
Most of the passengers on board flight FZ981 were Russian, the regional governor said on television.
About 700 rescue workers are at the site of the crash and the fire has been extinguished. A search is under way for the plane’s flight recorders.
Other flights have been diverted away from the airport.
A CCTV video showed what appeared to be a plane landing at the airport before being engulfed in a huge fire. Its authenticity has not been verified.
In a statement on its Facebook page, the airliner confirmed the “tragic accident” and said an emergency response has been put in place.
Update 2:flydubai regrets to confirm that flight FZ981 crashed on landing and that fatalities have been confirmed as a…
Posted by flydubai on Friday, March 18, 2016
“We are doing all we can to gather information as quickly as possible. At this moment our thoughts and prayers are with our passengers and our crew who were on board the aircraft,” the statement reads.
Boeing said on Twitter its team was working to gather more details.
All of us at Boeing send our thoughts and prayers to those on board flydubai FZ981, their families & friends: https://t.co/eRSl9LKPED
— Boeing Airplanes (@BoeingAirplanes) March 19, 2016
FlyDubai, a low cost carrier launched in 2009 with a hub in Dubai, operates flights to some 90 destinations.
