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Two Indians are among 62 people killed after a Dubai airliner crashed and caught fire early on Saturday while landing in strong winds in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. The names of the Indians in the list put out by Russian authorities are: Anju Kathirvel Aiyappan and Mohan Shyam, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
"Our mission is checking with the local university and Indian nationals for confirmation," he said.
A Dubai- Rostov-on-Don Boeing 737-800 has crash landed in Southern Russia, killing 62 people, the AP has reported. The flight is said to have crashed on its second attempt to land.
High winds and low visibility caused pilots to abort a first attempt at landing.
Their second attempt, which was captured by a CCTV camera, shows the plane coming in at a steep angle before crashing into the ground and bursting into flames.
Russian news station RT published dramatic CCTV imagery of an explosion which appears to have happened close to a main road. The plane was carrying at least 59 people, according to Xinhua.
RT reported sources in air-traffic control services said that “according to preliminary data, the Boeing 737 crashed in poor visibility conditions, some 50-100 meters left of the runway.”
FlyDubai, the carrier, tweeted following reports of the incident, “We are aware of an incident involving our flight FZ981 from Dubai to Rostov-on-Don. We are investigating further details and will publish an update once more information is available.”
Boeing said that they were aware of the crash as well, “We're aware of reports coming out of Russia and our team is currently gathering more details.”
With inputs from PTI
Image: A CCTV grab of the moment when the plane crash landed.