Pictures: Emirates Airline plane with 300 passangers crash-lands in Dubai

An Emirates passenger jet with 300 (282 passengers and 18 crew) on board has crash landed at Dubai International Airport around 12.45pm local time before exploding into a massive fireball on the runway, less than a minute later.

There are reports the landing gear for the plane, which had flown from Trivandrum International Airport in India, may not have come down fully prior to touching down. Other reports claimed the engine on the right side caught fire and fell off while landing.

Dramatic footage shows the aircraft exploding in a fireball on the runway, with the force of the blast throwing a huge metal panel from the plane into the air.

Incredibly, all passengers were reportedly evacuated safely within 45 seconds of landing before the plane was engulfed in flames.

Emirates said the flight departed at 10.19am from Trivandrum International Airport and was scheduled to land at 12.50pm at Dubai International Airport.

All flights to the Dubai terminal have been diverted while emergency crews work at the scene. All take-offs and landings have been suspended.

Meanwhile, the pilot and crew have been roundly praised for landing the plane, with initial reports suggesting the pilot asked the airport for permission for a crash landing.

The incident comes almost four months after a plane belonging to Dubai's other carrier, flydubai, crashed and burst into flames as it was landing in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, killing all 61 people onboard.

While I don't want to sound unpatriotic, let's be honest with ourselves, if this had happened in Nigeria the outcome would have been tragically different. 

Imagine, EVERYBODY, including crew were evacuated within 45 seconds of landing!!! 

An eyewitness Abby Wilson said:

"There was a loud noise outside. People ran to the windows and we saw the plane about 500 metres away.

"There was a lot of black smoke all across the tarmac ... we were told to sit down and shortly after that there was a loud bang ... the plane seemed to have shifted. The fire trucks were all around the plane."

Meanwhile, the Dubai government's media office said emergency response teams had fully extinguished the fire.

Nigerian authorities should learn from this.