This picture shows the bullet marks inside the flydubai aircraft in Baghdad. – Supplied photo
Dubai: Dubai-based Emirates Airlines and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways today cancelled their flights to Baghdad after bullets hit a passenger jet operated by budget carrier flydubai as it was landing at Baghdad airport, the companies and officials said on Tuesday.
An aviation official and a security official told Reuters that two passengers were slightly injured when three or four bullets hit the body of the plane on Monday evening, but they were unable to specify the source of the gunfire.
Sharjah’s Air Arabia and Dubai’s flydubai have also suspended their flights following the incident, in line with a directive from the UAE civil aviation authority.
“We suspended it right now,” Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, Divisional Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at Emirates, said on the sidelines of a Dubai conference. Asked if this was because of the incident involving a flydubai aircraft, he said: “That’s why we suspended it.”
“After landing at Baghdad International Airport (BGW) on January 26, 2015, damage to the aircraft fuselage consistent with small arms fire was discovered on flydubai flight FZ 215,” a flydubai spokesperson said.
The aviation official said Iraq had briefly suspended air traffic on Monday following the incident but that most flights had resumed on Tuesday morning.
