DUBAI/MOSCOW — Russian investigators probing the crash of a Dubai airliner in southern Russia that killed all 62 people on board have found one of the plane’s flight recorders.
The Boeing 737-800 operated by flydubai was carrying 55 passengers, most of them Russian, and seven crew members of various nationalities when it crashed Saturday in the city of Rostov-on-Don while trying to land in strong winds.
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said there were no survivors. Four children were among those killed, FlyDubai said.
Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for the Investigative Committee, said experts have found the cockpit conversation recorder and are continuing the search for another one which records parameters of the flight.
The crash’s cause wasn’t immediately known, but officials suggested it could have been caused by a gust of wind.
However, Flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith said at a news conference in Dubai that it was too early to say what caused the plane to crash.
“We will have information about the circumstances of the incident and the black box in the future, and an investigation is being conducted in cooperation with the Russian authorities and we are waiting to see the results,” Ghaith said.
“There was no distress call (issued) from the pilot,” he added. Dubai Media Office has released details of the nationalities of those on board the flydubai flight.
In a tweet, the office said there were 44 Russians, eight Ukranians, two Indians and one Uzbek. They comprised 33 women, 18 men and four children. Various sources said the pilot was from Cyprus, while crew members came from Spain and the remaining four were from Russia, Colombia, the Seychelles and Kyrgyzstan.
The Boeing 737, heading from Dubai to the southern Russian city, was reportedly making its second attempt to land at 0050 GMT when it missed the runway, erupting in a huge fireball as it crashed, leaving debris scattered across a wide area.
Inside the international terminal at Rostov-on-Don airport, local residents laid flowers in front of a list of the victims, as shocked relatives tried to digest the news.
“I turned on the news and for some reason thought it was a terrorist attack but it turned out to have been here right at the airport,” said relative Alexander Chistyakov. “My brother was fifteen years older than me. He was a successful surgeon in the local hospital. It is such a loss.”
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 6,400 meters per minute (21,000 feet/min).
The closed-circuit TV footage showed the plane going down in a steep angle and exploding.
Officials said the plane and bodies of the victims were torn into small pieces by the powerful blast, making identification difficult Investigators said they were working on the plane’s cockpit conversation recorder and another one recording parameters of the flight.
It was flydubai’s first crash since the budget carrier began operating in 2009. It was launched in 2008 by the government of Dubai.
