Crash of the Dubai Boeing 737. A FlyDubai plane crashed near Rostov-on-Don. Details of the incident. What happened in the last minutes of the flight

On the night of March 19, a Boeing 737-800 plane flying from Dubai crashed at the Rostov-on-Don airport. 62 people on board died, most of them were residents of Rostov and were flying from vacation. The airport is closed, the investigation is working on different versions of what happened, this plane crash is the first in the history of the company.

At 3.42 Moscow time, a plane flying Dubai - Rostov-on-Don operated by FlyDubai crashed while re-landing at Rostov airport. A video of the crash, captured by a surveillance camera, has surfaced online. The wreckage of the plane can be seen falling, and then a powerful explosion occurs.

There were 62 people on board, including the crew, all of them died, TASS reports. Among the passengers were four children, as well as foreign citizens from Ukraine, Uzbekistan and India. Six crew members were foreigners, and one was a Russian citizen. The list of victims can be found on the website of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

The night before, a storm warning was announced in Rostov-on-Don, TASS reports. At the time of the disaster, weather conditions were also bad.

“A strong southwest wind was blowing at a speed of 14 m/sec and gusts up to 19 m/sec. The maximum wind speed recorded at the time of the disaster was 22 m/sec. It was raining lightly,” TASS reports.

The Boeing from Dubai unsuccessfully attempted to land, after which it circled in the airport holding area for more than two hours. According to the head of the Southern Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Igor Oder, the plane caught its wing on the runway during a repeated approach.

“We are on the spot, the plane fell into pieces all over the field, there was no fire. “He obviously got caught on the take-off during the second approach, after which there was an impact, he was scattered into pieces across the field within a kilometer,” Oder told Interfax.

The video from the scene of the crash shows that the plane shattered into small pieces.

The first versions of the cause of the crash are pilot error and poor weather conditions.

“Several versions are being considered: these are bad weather conditions and a possible mistake by the pilots,” Zhanna Terekhova, adviser to the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, said on the Vesti 24 TV channel.

The version of a technical malfunction of the plane is also being considered; the version of a terrorist attack is not the main one, Interfax reports, citing a source in law enforcement agencies.

According to the recordings of the pilots' conversations with airport dispatchers, there were no emergency situations on board and the pilots did not report any problems with the aircraft until the crash.

“Preliminary analysis of the materials indicates that until the moment of the crash the flight was operating normally. The voices of the crew members were calm, they did not report any problems on board until they hit the ground,” an informed source told Interfax.

The plane took off from Dubai airport with a delay of 35 minutes, TASS reports, but this was not caused by a technical malfunction.

“Such delays are common for international airport Dubai due to its extreme congestion. We have no information about any technical problems with the plane,” one of the airport employees told TASS.

Most of the passengers are residents of Rostov who were returning from tourist trip, reports the Federal Tourism Agency.

"According to preliminary information, it was regular flight. It was carrying 30 tourists from the tour operator Natalie Tours. They were insured by Ingosstrakh,” agency representative Svetlana Sergeeva told TASS.

Rostov-on-Don airport is surrounded residential areas, but, according to the regional governor Vasily Golubev, none of the residents were injured.

“The buildings and residents were not damaged, the emergency occurred at 03:41 Moscow time somewhere 250-300 meters from the start of the runway to the left of the center from the city of Aksay,” TASS quotes him.

Rostov-on-Don airport is closed today, a total of 32 flights have been cancelled, Radio Rostov reports. Investigators and rescuers are working at the airport. Relatives of the victims are at the airport, 40 psychologists are working with them.

The crashed plane was purchased new from Boeing in 2011; it is one of the most popular models and has been in mass production since 1988. The plane crash in Rostov-on-Don is the first in the history of Flydubai, which has existed since 2008.

A terrible tragedy occurred on the night of March 19 in Rostov-on-Don. Passenger Boeing 737-800 returning from Dubai Fly airlines dubai crashed during landing. There were 55 passengers and 7 crew members on board the liner, all of them died.

Surveillance camera video of the crash...

What is known about passengers

Flight FZ981 on the route Dubai - Rostov was bringing people home from vacation. FlyDubai airline has clarified the citizenship of the passengers of the airliner that crashed in Rostov: 44 people from Russia, 8 from Ukraine, 2 from India, 1 from Uzbekistan, the airline said in a statement. Among the crew members were citizens of Greece, Spain and Cyprus. Among the dead were four children (here is a list of victims of the disaster). A member of the Legislative Assembly was also killed in the plane crash. Rostov region Igor Pacus and his wife.

Relatives and loved ones of the victims went to the airport, and a group of psychologists of 40 people is now working with them. Journalists are not allowed to see them.

The governor of the Rostov region Vasily Golubev will sign an order to pay the families of the victims one million rubles. In addition, they will receive insurance payments from FlyDubai airlines.

Causes of the disaster

The plane was supposed to land at night, but due to the weather it couldn’t land the first time. At 3:41 he disappeared from radar. During his second attempt to land on the runway, he crashed.

Flightradar24: The crashed Boeing tried to land for more than two hours:

Judging by Flightradar data, the Fly Dubai airline aircraft approached Rostov-on-Don at approximately 1:40 Moscow time and noticeably descended near the city airport. However, after this, the liner gained altitude and flew almost to the city of Shakhty northeast of Rostov-on-Don. Over the next hour and a half, the plane circled about 40 kilometers southeast of the city. Closer to half past three in the morning, the liner again headed for Rostov, where at about 3:41 Moscow time it disappeared from the radar.

A few minutes before the crash, a passenger plane was sent to an alternate airfield in Krasnodar, which was supposed to land in Rostov-on-Don. This was done due to weather conditions. Later, one of the passengers on this flight described his impressions:

According to the preliminary version, the Boeing's wing caught on the runway. The plane was new, only 5 years old, but the pilots had never landed at this airport before.

Latest negotiations between the pilots of the fallen Boeing and dispatchers at Rostov airport:

Airplane approach diagram on the terrain map:

Later, a version appeared that before the crash the plane was trying to make a third circle. The pilots did not give any distress signals ahead. A source in the emergency services said that the Boeing could have fallen at a speed of more than 300 km/h from a height of about 900 meters. The fall was almost vertical, the plane's nose entered the ground.

Bad weather conditions and crew error are the main versions of the investigation. The day before, a warning about a cyclone with a blizzard and wind of 22-27 m/s was announced. The investigation excludes the version of a terrorist attack. Another version is being considered - a technical malfunction.

Leading specialist at the Phobos weather center, Evgeniy Tishkovets, shared his opinion that the cause of the disaster could have been a rare natural phenomenon - the “jet stream”. This is a wind whose speed exceeds 100 km/h. “This jet current was observed from a height of 629 meters and extended to almost 10 thousand meters. As a rule, airplanes try to avoid this kind of phenomenon, except when they fly at a flight level of 9 kilometers and use this wind as a tailwind in order to save fuel.”

Other experts suggest that the pilots did not fly to land the plane in Krasnodar because they were afraid of fines from management and losses for their airline. “This is not only fuel consumption, but also transport fees at another airport, and accommodation of passengers while waiting - possibly even in a hotel, and their meals,” Oleg Smirnov, chairman of the Civil Aviation Commission of the Public Council of Rostransnadzor, told Komsomolskaya Pravda. - These are very large expenses. Tens of thousands of dollars."

The “black boxes” were delivered to Moscow for decryption, because Rostov-on-Don does not have the necessary equipment. It started this morning.

The crashed plane #FZ981 was supposed to fly back to the UAE with 140 passengers, now they are being transported by bus to Krasnodar.

Rostov-on-Don airport was closed until 07:00 on March 20. At 9:00 on March 20, the Ministry of Emergency Situations completed the search and rescue operation.

Criminal case

In connection with the plane crash, a criminal case has been initiated under the article “violation of traffic and operational safety rules.” air transport resulting in the death of two or more persons through negligence.” Its progress was taken under control by the Prosecutor General's Office; the Deputy Prosecutor General left for Rostov-on-Don. During the investigation, the prosecutor's office will check the actions of the Rostov airport services during the crash.

Expert opinions on the disaster

Sergey Melnichenko, aviation expert, director of the Flight Safety agency:

“In aviation, there are rarely cases when only one cause becomes a probable factor in a disaster. This usually happens due to a whole string of reasons coming together. The weather conditions in Rostov-on-Don were not favorable, but were within normal limits.<...>I would like to draw attention to the fact that the plane was less than a third full. Professional pilots will confirm that it is more difficult to land a light aircraft.”

Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tulpar Aerogroup Azat Hakim:

“I believe that the pilots of the plane took an unjustified risk. The Boeing 737-800 is a flying computer, and the pilot is an operator. When quickly changing the configuration of flight parameters, especially when making a missed approach near the ground, everything is decided by a split second. This is a very dangerous moment. It would have been worth going to another nearby airport, for example to Krasnodar, and then flying to Rostov or sending passengers by bus.”

Denis Okan, pilot instructor at Globus LLC:

“We encounter this kind of weather quite often, but, again, 99% of the time it is not a reason to crash the plane. Firstly, pilots still know how to cope with landing in such conditions, and secondly, if anything happens, you can always go around. Of course, weather can be a factor, but there are always a lot of these “factors” in any disaster. Each factor alone is usually something that could have been easily avoided, but when combined with other factors, it unfortunately ends up killing us.”

Mourning has been declared in the Rostov region.

Online:

15:33 A spontaneous rally took place in front of the airport in Rostov, people came with wreaths and flowers to honor the memory of the victims. Among them are many doctors and students - a professor at a medical university died in a plane crash.


Photo by Yana Goncharova

14:36 Senator Sergei Shatirov, deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy, which oversees transport issues:

“The crew commander could have chosen an alternate airfield for departure, but he decided to land in Rostov and for this he burned through fuel for two and a half hours.”

When the commander repeatedly requested landing, the controller could not help but give him permission even in bad conditions. weather conditions, because the plane had no fuel left, Shatirov added. - RIA

14:33

14:31 Almost fifty psychologists from the Ministry of Emergency Situations are now working at the Rostov airport with relatives of passengers of the crashed Boeing 737 airliner. Psychologists will work with relatives of the victims even after emergency assistance is provided. - Patrol Radio Rostov

14:28 The head of the city administration, Sergei Gorban, said that the families of the dead Rostov residents will be paid 200 thousand rubles. Although the governor promised a million.

14:07 The Investigative Committee reported that the investigation into the disaster could take up to four months. The crash site was divided into 12 sectors; groups of 847 people and 98 pieces of equipment are currently working there. - RIA

14:03 While investigators are examining the seized flight documents, Flydubai's director said he doubts the pilots' two-hour attempts to land the plane at the airport: “This situation is not normal, but this information has not yet been confirmed, we will find out if this was the case.”

It became known that 50 and 140 people refused to fly from Krasnodar to Dubai on a Flydubai flight. - RIA

13:55 Dead Russian passengers were not insured against an accident, RIA reports. Ingosstrakh PR Director Karen Asoyan commented to the news agency:

“We checked everyone. None of the passengers purchased separate policies that included accident risks. ... Some of the passengers were insured by Ingosstrakh, but this insurance does not imply compensation for an accident, it is exclusively medical.”

13:52 According to preliminary data reported by the regional press service, 40 of the passengers are residents of the Rostov region, including 28 people from Rostov-on-Don, 4 people from Novocherkassk, 4 people from Bataysk, 2 people - from the Azov district, one person each from the Oktyabrsky district and the city of Novoshakhtinsk. - Rain

13:45 One of the passengers who was supposed to fly on the crashed Boeing 737 did not get on the plane because she had extended her stay in Dubai, Natalie Tours reported - RBC

13:40 According to updated data, there were 16 foreign citizens on board the plane: seven people from Ukraine, two each from Spain and India, as well as people from Cyprus, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Colombia and the Seychelles. – TASS

13:37 Russian TV channels are changing their broadcast schedule in connection with the plane crash, in particular, they are removing entertainment shows from the air. There will be no “Moscow Evenings” on the First today. – RIA

13:29 There is no doubt that the crash of the Boeing 737-800 flying from Dubai in Rostov-on-Don was not caused by a bomb, said Flydubai chief executive Ghaith al-Ghaith. – RIA

13:25 There are about 30 relatives of the victims at the airport. Among them there are elderly people. The team of psychologists consists of more than 40 people. Several priests of the Rostov diocese are also on site. - Rain

13:20 The US Embassy expresses condolences

Our thoughts and condolences are with the families and loved ones of the victims of the FlyDubai crash Rostov.

Specialists of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) continue to decipher the recorders of the FlyDubai Boeing 737-800 that crashed at the Rostov-on-Don airport. Tentatively, the decoding of the parametric and flight recorders will be completed by the middle of next week, but some important details have already become known to the media. As Kommersant reports, citing a source close to the investigation, experts have already managed to reconstruct the picture of the plane crash, and the pilots’ error on at the moment is the dominant version.

On March 19, the crew of flight FZ981 tried to land at Rostov-on-Don airport in difficult weather conditions. That morning, a rare weather phenomenon - a jet stream - was observed in the area of ​​the airport. A strong gusty wind was blowing, its speed at the time of the disaster was up to 22 meters per second. Because of this, the Boeing autothrottle, which maintains flight parameters and ensures the aircraft moves along a given trajectory in autopilot mode, did not work well.

According to the recorders, the crew twice tried to land in automatic mode, but both attempts were unsuccessful due to squally winds. For the third round, the pilots decided to leave manually. At an altitude of about 270 meters, six kilometers from the runway, one of the pilots pressed the button that commanded the missed approach and turned off the autopilot, taking control.

According to experts, the pilots did not take into account the specifics of the machine's transition to manual climb mode. The Boeing 737's automation works in such a way that during landing, the elevator is deflected into a dive, and the tail stabilizer, on the contrary, lifts the nose of the aircraft. If the autopilot is working during the go-around approach, the position of the rudders is smoothly changed by the on-board computer. In manual mode, the pilot reflexively pulls the steering wheel towards himself, as a result of which both the rudder and the stabilizer are in the climb position. Pilots are taught not to pitch the nose up at low altitudes, but emergency situation they often forget about it. A passenger Boeing cannot take off like a fighter; the speed drops below critical and the plane goes into a tailspin.

At the crash site passenger plane"Boeing 737-800" in Rostov-on-Don. Photo: Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Rostov Region

FlyDubai pilots found themselves in a similar situation. When the plane was already close to falling into a tailspin, a conflict occurred in the cockpit. The pilot in control was trying to gain speed, but his partner believed that it was necessary to lower the nose first. The newspaper's source said that he shouted to his partner: “Stop. Where? Stand! Stop!”, trying to stop climbing at the same time.

This desynchronization in control led to the fact that the on-board computer of the aircraft began to receive multidirectional electrical impulses from both controls, which further aggravated the situation. Only when the pilots felt as if they were in a falling elevator did they manage to coordinate their actions. But at this moment practically nothing could be done; the uncontrollable Boeing was rushing towards the ground at a speed of 325 km/h at an angle of 45 degrees. In the last few seconds, both pilots screamed in horror. Vesti's source said that these were “inhuman screams.”

It will be difficult to determine which pilot made a mistake. In the last dialogue, they do not address each other by name or position, and the timbres of their voices and intonations are surprisingly similar. At first, investigators even thought that the entire conversation was being conducted by one person. For auditory identification of crew members, close colleagues of the pilots or their relatives will most likely be involved.

Assistant to the Chairman of the IAC Arthur Muradyan could neither confirm nor deny information about the conflict between the pilots. According to him, the committee staff did not provide this information Kommersant or other media. At the moment, all information related to the investigation of the plane crash is closed. Preliminary data from the decoding of the flight recorders will be announced “in a week or two.” The final results of the decoding and their publication are expected no earlier than in a month. “When we have our data, then it will be possible to comment on something,” Muradyan told TASS.

Experts believe that the pilots of Boeing 737 may not have recognized the spontaneous maneuver of the airliner due to fatigue or lack of experience. The second option is unlikely, since the crew commander had 5,700 flight hours, the co-pilot - 5,669. They were not familiar with the specifics of the Rostov airport, but their level of training allowed them to fly the aircraft in any conditions.

Russian pilots who were landing in Rostov-on-Don at the same time heard negotiations between Boeing and the dispatcher and no tension was noticeable in the intonations. The situation probably got out of control in a matter of seconds. One of the decisive factors in the disaster could have been chronic fatigue of the pilots. Their colleagues previously stated this on condition of anonymity.

Boeing crash in Rostov-on-Don. Photo: russian.rt.com

Three FlyDubai employees told the BBC that crew chief Aristos Socratous had submitted his resignation before the flight due to fatigue and poor quality of life. One of the pilots admitted that he fell asleep during flights. This issue was raised with the airline's management, but nothing was done to resolve it.

“Team members are overworked and suffering from fatigue. And this is a significant risk. Employees go back to day shifts after night shifts without sufficient time to rest. I would say 50% of airline staff suffer from acute fatigue,” one source told the BBC.

Another active pilot told Russia Today that the co-pilot of flight FZ981 was so tired that he did not want to go to work that evening. FlyDubai responded that they could not disclose confidential information regarding the carrier’s employees.

737-800 of FlyDubai in Rostov-on-Don, which occurred on March 19, 2016. As follows from the official statement of the IAC, the actual weather in the area of ​​the Rostov-on-Don airfield at the time of the accident corresponded to the predicted weather. “The meteorological equipment used to monitor weather parameters at the Rostov-on-Don airfield was verified, serviceable and operational,” the IAC report says. Meteorological support for the flight of Boeing 737-800 No. A6-FDN of FlyDubai airlines, operating flight FDB981 on the route Dubai - Rostov-on-Don, also met the requirements of regulatory and guidance documents.

Based on the results of a preliminary analysis of information from the flight recorders, it was established that the aircraft crew carried out a landing approach in manual piloting mode (the autopilot was turned off) in difficult weather conditions (lower cloud limit 630 m, wind 230 degrees 13 m/s, gusts 18 m/s, weak showers, haze, strong bumps and moderate wind shear on a straight line).

During the first approach at 22.42 UTC at an altitude of 340 m, having received information from the on-board system about “wind shear” (a sharp change in wind strength and direction),

the crew decided to make a “go-around”, after which they flew near the airport while waiting for weather conditions to improve.

During the re-approach, which also took place in manual control mode, the crew at an altitude of 220 m (4 km before the runway) again decided on a “go-around”. At an altitude of 900 m, simultaneously with the crew turning the steering wheel away from themselves, the aircraft stabilizer was deflected by five degrees into a dive,

as a result of which the aircraft “went into an energetic descent with the implementation of a vertical load factor of up to -1 unit.” The subsequent actions of the crew did not prevent the aircraft from colliding with the ground.

The collision occurred at a speed of more than 600 km/h with a dive pitch angle of more than 50 degrees.

The IAC report notes that the pilots of the aircraft had valid pilot licenses, underwent the necessary training, had sufficient flight time on this type of aircraft, and all necessary documents. According to the commission, the crew commander's total flight time was 5,965 hours, Boeing flight time was 2,597 hours, of which 1,005 hours as a PIC.

Meanwhile, as Gazeta found out. Ru",

It has already demanded that airlines operating Boeing conduct retraining and additional training for pilots.

This is stated in the newsletter (available to Gazeta.Ru), which was distributed by the department.

As follows from the document, the supervisory agency recommends that heads of organizations civil aviation operating Boeing 737 aircraft of all modifications, re-examine the missed approach procedure with the flight crew. It is also proposed to include in the flight crew training program regular training on the FFS simulator, practicing the crew’s actions to recover the aircraft from a difficult spatial position and practicing a missed approach.

Then the crew of the plane, going around due to difficult weather conditions, also brought the plane beyond critical angles of attack and “dropped” it as a result of loss of speed and further uncoordinated actions of the pilots.

During the investigation of that disaster, an experiment was conducted on a simulator to divert an aircraft into a missed circle. 11 experienced pilots took part in the experiment, but only four completed the task. The experiment involved pilots from five Russian airlines with various flight experience and professional status (PIC-instructor, PIC, co-pilot), including pilots who have undergone retraining from navigators and flight engineers.

During the tests it turned out that

During their flight practice, only seven pilots performed an actual go-around (from one to four go-arounds).

Four pilots had no such practice at all in real flights. Practicing actions during a missed approach is carried out on a simulator, and mainly the approach from a low altitude (LAL) is practiced and mainly on one engine. According to the pilots, a missed approach from an intermediate altitude was not used in training practice. As a result, none of the pilots answered correctly all seven questions regarding the logic of joint operation of the aircraft’s automatic systems, and four, remembering their school days, tried to use “cheat sheets” on mobile devices.

“Moreover, after completing the go-around mode on the simulator, two pilots claimed that the go-around took place in automatic mode, that is, under the autopilot (and this with the autopilot disconnect alarm working!). This indicates both an insufficient level of necessary knowledge and a gap between theoretical knowledge and practical skills,” the IAC shrugs.

One pilot (twice!) failed to control the controls during the go-around and actually brought the car into stall mode, just like the pilots of the Boeing that crashed in Kazan.

A Boeing 737-800 with registration A6-FDN of the Dubai low-cost airline flydubai on March 19 at about 03:40 in the morning crashed at the end of the runway at Rostov-on-Don airport after a second go-around.

Everyone on board died. According to flydubai, flight FZ981 Dubai-Rostov carried 55 passengers, including 44 Russian citizens, eight Ukrainian citizens, two Indian citizens and one Uzbek citizen, as well as two pilots and five flight attendants. flydubai published list of those on flight FZ981.

flydubai said the carrier's policy would pay $20,000 per passenger to the families of those killed to cover immediate financial needs.

At the moment, both black boxes of the plane have been found and delivered to Moscow to the Interstate Aviation Committee. Specialists read data from a parametric recorder and started deciphering them. Most of the debris was scattered over a relatively small area.

According to the schedule, the airliner was supposed to arrive at 01:20 on the night of March 19, but during the first approach the crew went around. For about two hours, the airliner circled in the airport waiting area due to bad weather conditions.

Flightradar24

During the second attempt to land, the crew again decided to go around and began to climb when, at an altitude of 3,975 feet (1,200 meters), the airliner abruptly began to descend at a speed of 21,000 feet per minute (6,400 meters per minute), flightradar24 data shows.

The video, which was recorded by a surveillance camera, shows how the plane crashes into the ground at a high angle, after which an explosion occurs.

Flight over the crash site

Photo: Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, Zahar Spotter URRR

It is noteworthy that the photographs taken by a local spotter show multi-ton fire trucks driving through the wreckage of the airliner.

In the area of ​​the plane crash in Rostov, weather forecasters recorded the so-called “jet current,” which is rare natural phenomenon, Evgeniy Tishkovets, a specialist at the FOBOS weather center, told the RBC TV channel.

According to him, the weather at the time of the plane crash in Rostov was determined by the southern periphery of a powerful Atlantic cyclone, while the lower edge of cloudiness was at the level of 300-600 m, and the wind speed during the night of March 19 was 12-14 m/s, with gusts reaching 18-19 m/s. At the same time, at an altitude of 600 to 10 thousand meters, a “jet current” was observed, in which the speed of the wind flow usually exceeds 100 km/h.

"In this situation, the speed of this wind varied from 104 km/h at an altitude of 600 meters to 162 km/h at altitudes of 5-7 thousand meters. The wind speed of 104 km/h at an altitude of 600 meters is about 30 m/s, this the speed of the hurricane wind, of course, could affect the flight dynamics,” Tishkovets noted.

According to the resource Aviation Safety Network, before the crashed Boeing 737-800 began landing, an S7 Airlines A319 successfully landed in Rostov on the first attempt (01:23 - local time)from Moscow and A320 " Ural Airlines"from Khujand (01:28).

The flydubai crew aborted the approach at 01:42. At 01:54, Aeroflot's Sukhoi Superjet 100 from Moscow aborted its approach and went around. Aeroflot's pilots tried to land again at 02:07 and 02:17, but in the end, at 02:20, they sent the plane to an alternate airfield in Krasnodar.

The flydubai Boeing 737-800 aborted a second attempt to land at 03:40 at an altitude of 1,550 feet (472 meters), 5.6 kilometers from the runway, and collided with the ground at 03:41, falling from an altitude of 3,975 feet (1,200 meters).

UTC time, local time, description of events are indicated

The accident occurred at the end of the runway. All flights from Rostov airport are canceled until at least Monday, March 21.

The Boeing 737-800 of the Dubai low-cost airline flydubai that crashed on March 19 in Rostov-on-Don was flying from Kyiv before the disaster, reports citing data from flightradar24.

According to online radar data, the plane with registration A6-FDN should not have flown to Rostov at all. The airliner was scheduled to fly from Kyiv to Dubai on flight FZ744 at 21:30 on March 18, while the crashed flight FZ981 Dubai-Rostov was scheduled to take off at 20:45, i.e. 45 minutes before the arrival of the Kyiv flight.

Flightradar24

However, in the end, the crashed airliner arrived ahead of schedule at 21:12, and it was put on a flight to Rostov, which took off 52 minutes late at 21:37. Thus, according to flightradar24, the turnaround time in Dubai was 25 minutes.

Boeing 737-800 with tail number A6-FDN was transferred to flydubai in January 2011. Delivered new to the air carrier directly from the factory. Initially, the layout of all the company's aircraft provided accommodation for 189 passengers, but after the introduction of business class, the number of seats in the cabin was reduced to 174.

The airline was established in 2008 as Dubai's low-cost carrier to complement Emirates, which is positioned as a premium airline.

flydubai operates low-cost flights in the local market as well as international flights tourist destinations. In addition, the company acts as a carrier of passengers to Dubai for Emirates flights.

In the Ukrainian and Russian markets, the airline specializes in transporting passengers to tourist destinations. Currently it operates flights from Dubai to the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Odessa.