An Emirates flight from India with 300 people on board, including an Australian co–pilot and an Australian passenger, has crash-landed at Dubai International Airport before erupting in flames.

A firefighter has died during efforts to douse the flames from the plane and 10 people have been hospitalised.

At a news conference on Wednesday night, Emirates chairman Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said medical teams also dealt with 13 people with minor injuries.

Ahmed bin Saeed: Medical teams dealt with 13 persons with minor injuries, who left after a short time pic.twitter.com/OSWjK2xV7B

— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) August 3, 2016

Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said the co–pilot had 7000 hours of flying experience. The crash was not security related.

Images of the Boeing 777 billowing dark grey smoke quickly emerged as emergency personnel raced to put out the fire on the tail end of one of the runways.

Watch the terrifying footage inside the aircraft

https://twitter.com/thebobbydeoll/status/760912440020336641

NBC News journalist Krishna Bhagavathula was at the airport and reported that the fire had burned through the “entire top” of the plane.

The Dubai-based airline said the incident happened at 12.45pm local time.

“It was actually really terrifying. As we were landing there was smoke coming out in the cabin,” said passenger Sharon Maryam Sharji.

“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.”

Another passenger has recounted her fears to Fairfax Media, saying that it was about 50 steps or two minutes that separated her and her five-month-old son from the burning plane.

“My husband was two steps in front of me, we’d only reached 50 steps and then we heard the second explosion and at that moment the whole thing caught on fire,” Amelia Binu told Fairfax Media.

“And the only thing we were thinking was is everybody out?”

“When we saw that no-one was injured that was the happiest moment, you know, ‘Thank God!'”

“We can confirm that there are no fatalities among our passengers and crew. All passengers and crew are accounted for and safe,” wrote the airline on its official Twitter account.

Emirates – the biggest Airline in the United Arab Emirates – announced it would be closing the airport for at least the next eight hours, causing disarray for thousands of international travellers.

The airport has now re–opened and flights have resumed.

The Aviation Herald – an industry forum that reports daily about incidents and critical situations in civil aviation – said only that the plane’s landing gear collapsed and it burst into flames.

“[The plane] was on final approach to Dubai’s runway … but attempted to go around from low height,” it said. “The aircraft however did not climb, but after retracting the gear touched down on the runway and burst into flames.”

Plane-maker Boeing said in a statement it was monitoring the situation in Dubai and would be working with Emirates to gather more information.

Images posted to social media showed black smoke billowing from the airport.

From cockpit, #livefeed #DXB crash landing. #Dubai #dubaiairport #live … pic.twitter.com/OG3RfN6Cdm

— Hayen Ayari (@HayenAyari) August 3, 2016

The Dubai government’s official media office said on Twitter that all passengers were “evacuated safely and no injuries have been reported so far”.

It said authorities are “dealing with the incident at the moment to ensure safety of all”.

We can confirm flight EK521 from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai has been involved in an accident at Dubai International.

— Emirates (@emirates) August 3, 2016

Emirates released a list of the nationalities of passengers on board, which included two Australians.

There were 226 passengers from India, 24 from the UK and 11 from the UAE.

The identities of the two Australians has not yet been confirmed.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) issued a statement on Thursday morning saying authorities were working to determine the whereabouts of the Australians.

“The Australian Consulate in Dubai is urgently seeking to contact any Australians affected by the emergency landing of an Emirates aircraft in Dubai,” DFAT said.

الجهات المختصة في مطار #دبي تتعامل الآن مع الحادث الذي تعرضت له طائرة طيران الامارات عند هبوطها وضمان سلامة الجميع pic.twitter.com/1WJ30JoaRP

— عشق الكتابة (@rsddar) August 3, 2016

A representative for the carrier told News.com.au there had not yet been any injuries reported.

The flight originated form Thiruvananthapuram in southern India.

Unclear if landing gear was deployed

Keith Mackey, a former airline pilot and air crash investigator, said two things struck him on seeing the burning remains of the Boeing 777, ABC reported.

“I don’t observe any landing gear at all, and that’s puzzling — I wouldn’t expect it to be completely knocked off, I’d expect it to see something.

“And I don’t see a right engine anywhere.”

Emirates tweeted that it was an “operational incident” but said there was no further information as to the cause.

A blow to Emirates’ safety rating

The Dubai airline’s safety rating currently sits at the maximum 7/7 stars.

“An airline with a seven star safety rating meets and generally exceeds all international requirements that are put in place to prevent an accident happening,” says Airline Ratings.

This is only the third ‘incident’ recorded for the airline, and no passenger has ever died in an Emirates accident.

In 2009, an Emirates plane flying from Melbourne to Dubai failed to take off properly and hit a number of structures on the runway. No one was hurt, but the Australian Transport Safety Bureau classified the incident as an ‘accident’.

Emirates Airlines is a major partner of Australia’s national carrier, Qantas.

Emirates’ home base in Dubai is used as transfer point for thousands of passengers travelling between Australia and Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

According to the Qantas website, Qantas and Emirates fly from Australia to Dubai 14 times per day.

– with agencies