Dubai: The pilots of the fatal flydubai flight that crashed in Russia on Saturday did not issue a distress call before the disaster that killed on 62 passengers and crew on board, the airline’s chief executive said on Saturday.
Flydubai flight 981 crashed and exploded when attempting to land at an airport in Rostov-on-Don in southwestern Russia in the early hours of Saturday. The flight had been circuling the airport for two hours after earlier making a failed attempt to land at the airport. Russian authorities have reportedly said visibility was low due to poor weather conditions.
“I can confirm a far as I can see there was no distress call,” flydubai chief executive Ghaith Al Ghaith said at a press conference in Dubai on Saturday.
The aircraft, a five year old Boeing 737-800, went through a heavy maintenance check just two months ago, Al Ghaith also said.
The flight departed Dubai International at 12:20am on Saturday. The accident occured at 4:50am Dubai time.
There were 55 passengers and 7 crew members on board. The nationalities of the passengers have been confirmed as 44 Russians, 8 Ukrainians, 2 Indians and 1 Uzbekistani. Of the passengers 33 were women, 18 were men and 5 were children.
The United Arab Emirates’ General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said there were 2 female and 5 male crew members. Their nationalities were 1 Cypriot, 2 Spaniard, 1 Russian, 1 Seychellois, and 1 Columbian and 1 Kyrgyzstani. It is understood the pilots were Cypriot and Spanish.
The GCAA has sent a 4 person team to Moscow who will then travel onwards to Rostov-on-Don to assist Russian authorities in the investigation into the incident, GCAA assistant director general for air accident investigation Ismail Al Hosani said.
Flydubai has sent an emergency response team directly to the site, Al Ghaith said.
The flydubai chief declined to comment on what might have caused the accident, telling reporters it was too early to speculate.
“We cannot judge right now what has happened until our team get the full information about the incident,” he said.
Al Hosani said the GCAA isn’t ruling anything out.
Saturday’s accident in Russia is believed to be the worst aircraft disaster involving an airline from the UAE. Flydubai is a relatively young airline, having started operations in 2009 it has been involved in few notable safety incidents. In 2015, one of its aircraft was struck by a bullet when landing at Baghdad International Airport.