TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Three hundred passengers and crew escaped on Wednesday, August 3, 2016, when an Emirates passenger jet arriving from India caught fire after a hard landing in Dubai that brought the world's busiest international airport to a halt.

An amateur video uploaded in social media showed a tower of flame bursting from the front of the Boeing 777-300 jetliner, and then a thick black plume of smoke rising into the sky.

In addition to the vidoe, photographs on social media showed a plane lying crumpled on the tarmac with black smoke pouring from its upper section.

A spokesperson for operator Dubai Airports said everyone aboard flight EK521 coming from Thiruvananthapuram had been evacuated and emergency services were managing the situation.

A man waiting for relatives on the flight said he had spoken to them by phone. "They said they're safe and alright, but that they felt a great panic as the plane was on fire," the man said.

Another man said his family had also told him they were fine and there had been a problem with the landing gear.

"It was actually really terrifying. As we were landing there was smoke coming out in the cabin," passenger Sharon Maryam Sharji said. "People were screaming and we had a very hard landing. We left by going down the emergency slides and as we were leaving on the runway we could see the whole plane catch fire; it was horrifying."

REUTERS