Lux

Some quick thoughts.

The speculation on the cause of this is pointless unless you have very specific knowledge of handling the big jets, and this specific flight. Uninformed speculation is boring. Grounding all 777s? Come on...

I'm really impressed, from a distance at least, at how Emirates has handled this - their media plan worked, the website has gone monochrome for a while and there seems to be no ongoing calamity with flight delays and cancellations.

I'm also impressed at how the Emirates board has reacted. If this was certain other forums (ahem, BA), there'd be uproar.

None of us have any idea of how we'd react in this situation, stopping to get luggage is dumb but oddly understandable. I'm a pilot (of little planes) and have practiced emergencies hundreds of times, and therefore I'm the kind of person who actually thinks what they'd do sitting on the exit row, but I can't predict what would happen if I was in a crash as a passenger. Darn sure I'd look out the window to check for fire though, and make sure I'm sitting near an exit.

I've learned from FT to have my passport, phone and a couple of credit cards in my pocket when taking off and landing. The experience of passengers on the BA flight that crashed at Heathrow a few years ago was that, without a passport, they were stuck in the lounge for a very long time. With a passport, they could have gone home.

LonghornDXB

And the vast majority of passengers on EK521 were not citizens of the UAE and so their visas were in their passport as well if they were residents.
So it is not just a matter of going home vs the lounge, but one of their livelihood as well. At least that is the way the thought process worked.

The authorities have handled it admirably so far, so I wouldn't be surprised to see an announcement that in such a similar case in future, God forbid, expats will get their visas back even if they lose the passport .. after getting a temporary entry visa on arrival

For e.g. an Indian travelling to BAH/KWI via DXB would have to go back to India and possibly lose his job in case he lost his passport. There is absolutely no way he would get his Qatar or Kuwaiti work visa back when stuck in DXB ....

LonghornDXB

I am guessing that when a few passengers near the exit started taking their bags down, it blocked the exits and other pax thought "why not take our bags down as well instead of waiting and doing nothing"

skywardhunter

Full ATC with subtitled. Appears go-around on first attempt gone wrong.

My assumptions: early gear retraction without consistent positive rate of climb and/or strong wind shear causing stall into the ground.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot the link:

MSPeconomist

Some media (CNN?) have been reporting that thirteen passengers were injured, received medical attention (not clear whether they were taken to hospitals), and released.

Also, in contrast to the information in the wiki, the count seems to be 282 passengers and 18 crew for a total of 300 people on board.

Redhat72

A video from inside the plane has emerged which does show some chaos on board with FAs commanding passengers to not take their bags.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36971855

I don't what others do but I generally keep my passport with me most of the time. If not with me, it is in my small laptop bag that is with me & not in the overhead bin. Thefts do happen inside the planes and last thing you want is to lose your passport.

It is also a good idea to have digital scanned copies of your passport and visas (passport protected PDFs or zip files) on a small USB or even on a secure server. A friend's bag was stolen on a train in Europe and he was able to get an emergency passport and temp VISA issued after he showed the scanned copies.

murtaza12

Sorry for not wording my post correctly.

The plane was aborting a 2nd landing attempt and it had it's gear retracted, and during that a wind shear caused it to 'crash land'.

Again, as ACARS said, take this with a pinch of salt, since it's mostly gossip from EGHQ.

Ldnn1

Where is the evidence that this was a second attempt? I haven't seen any so far.

wolf72

Bear in mind, a lot of passengers on this flight do not travel regularly and are not savvy travellers (no offence meant) so for them to pack their passport/documents in their travel bag and to store it in the bin above is normal. They are not expecting a plane crash.

For them, panic sets in during a crash but not losing their valuable documents is also vital.

But we also saw some people taking their own sweet time getting their bags and taking their time getting out...things only started to move foward and evacuate really when the FA's started shouting and getting people to move...

This could have ended tragically if the fuel blew up whilst people were still monkeying about with their bags or causing the walk way to be blocked or causing a 'traffic jam' of sorts...

Well done to the FA's for taking control of the situation and getting people to move

iRobert

I have scanned copies of the passport of myself and my family in "the cloud". I can access them at any time. The files itself are not called passport.jpg or something like that in the event of a hack or so but it is still a safe option for traveling.

murtaza12

Gossip my friend, just gossip.

No solid info as far as I know. Just rumours.

RTW1

That might give you some sense of security... but what do you intend to do with copies? Not travel that's for sure, and most places won't take them as proof of identity either.

Ldnn1

Well there appears to be fairly solid info from both FR24 and Planefinder that only one attempt was made, so the gossip looks pretty rubbish to me.

Unless someone can point to some differing info I wouldn't pay any heed to that gossip.

Himeno

Boeing and the NTSB are not going to be the lead investigators on this. The investigation will be carried out by the UAE's General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA). The GCAA may invite the NTSB and Boeing to assist, but the NTSB will not be running it or issuing the report.

m3red

It will make your life a lot easier should you lose them. It's a sensible thing to do.