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This photo released by Russia's Emergency Ministry March 19, 2016 shows Russian emergency Ministry rescuer working at the passengers' jet crash scene at the airport in Rostov-on-Don.(Photo: Russian Emergency Ministry, AFP/Getty Images)
A Dubai airliner making a second attempt to land during strong wind and rain crashed in a fireball short of the Rostov-on-Don airport in southern Russia Saturday, killing all<span style="color: Red;">*</span>62 people aboard.
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said the Boeing 737-800 operated by FlyDubai was carrying 55 passengers, most of them Russians, and a seven crew members of various nationalities, including the captain from Cyprus.
FlyDubai, a budget airline operating out of the United<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Arab Emirates, said <span style="color: Red;">*</span>Flight FZ981 was traveling from Dubai to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the Rostov-on-Don airport, located about 600 miles south of Moscow.
Vasily Golubev, the governor of the Rostov region<span style="color: Red;">*</span>told<span style="color: Red;">*</span>local journalists that the plane crashed about<span style="color: Red;">*</span>800 feet<span style="color: Red;">*</span>short of the runway, according to Russian news agencies.
“By all appearances, the cause of the air crash was the strongly gusting wind, approaching a hurricane level,” he said, although the crash of the crash was not immediately determined. Both flight data recorders were recovered in good condition, according to the Russian Interfax news agency.
According to the weather data reported by Russian state television, winds at the moment of the crash at an altitude of 1,640 feet<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and higher were around 67 miles per hour, the Associated Press reported.
A relative of the plane crash victim sobs as he is comforted by other relatives at the Rostov-on-Don airport, about 950 kilometers (600 miles) south of Moscow, Russia Saturday, March 19, 2016.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: AP)
Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for the flight-tracking website Flightradar24, told The Associated Press that the plane missed its approach then entered a holding pattern.
According to Flightradar24, the plane circled for about two hours before making another attempt to land. It said a Russian Aeroflot plane scheduled to land around the same time made three landing attempts but then diverted to another airport.
According to its data, the Dubai plane began climbing again after a go-around when it suddenly started to fall with vertical speed of up to 21,000 feet<span style="color: Red;">*</span>per minute.
"The aircraft completely fell apart at the start of the runway,"chief of the Southern Regional Center of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, said during a video conference held by the emergencies minister, the Tass news agency reported.
The closed-circuit TV footage showed the plane going down in a steep angle and exploding in a huge fireball that lit up the night sky.
The impact of the crash pulverized the plane, leaving few pieces of debris larger than a foot wide across<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a large area just off the main rainway.
Some Russian aviation experts said the steep descent appeared to indicate that the crash most probably have been caused by a gust of wind.
“It was an uncontrollable fall,” said Sergei Kruglikov, a veteran Russian pilot, said on Russian state television. He said that a sudden change in wind speed and direction could have caused the wings to abruptly lose their lifting power.
Nationalities of victims from the passengers of Fly Dubai plane in Russia include:
44 Russians
8 from Ukraine
2 from India
1 from Uzbekistan
— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) March 19, 2016
Among the passengers<span style="color: Red;">*</span>44 people from Russia and eight from Ukraine. Other victims were from<span style="color: Red;">*</span>India,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Colombia, and the Seychelles Islands, the Tass news agency reports.
"At this moment our thoughts and prayers are with our passengers and our crew who were on board the aircraft," the Dubai<span style="color: Red;">*</span>government's media office said on Twitter. "We will do everything we can to help those who have been affected by this accident."
It was FlyDubai’s first crash since the budget carrier began operating in 2009. It was launched in 2008 by the government of Dubai, the Gulf commercial hub that is part of the seven-state United Arab Emirates federation. The carrier has been flying to Rostov-on-Don since 2013.
The airline shares a chairman with Dubai’s government-backed Emirates, the Middle East’s biggest airline, though the two carriers operate independently and maintain separate operations from their bases at Dubai International Airport, the region’s busiest airport.
FlyDubai’s fleet consisted of relatively young 737-800 aircraft, like the one that crashed. The airline says it operates more than 1,400 flights a week.
The airline has expanded rapidly in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, the AP reports. Dubai is a popular tourist destination for Russian visitors, who are attracted by its beaches, shopping malls and year-round sunshine. Many Russian expatriates live and work in Dubai, a city where foreigners outnumber locals more than 4-to-1.
FlyDubai has a good safety record. In January 2015, one of its planes was struck on the fuselage by what appeared to small-arms fire shortly before it landed in Baghdad. That flight landed safely with no major injuries reported.
Governor of Rostov region Vassily Golubev talks to the media in a terminal of Rostov-on-Don airport, Russia, on March 19, 2016.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Maxim Romanov, epa)
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