Updated 

An Emirates Airline flight from India caught fire while landing at Dubai International Airport today, but all 300 passengers and crew escaped from the burning fuselage, authorities said. A fire-fighter was killed. 

Video showed a tower of flame bursting from the front of the aircraft, and then a thick black plume of smoke rising into the sky.  

The same Boeing 777-31H that crash-landed was in Malta as recently as yesterday, information provided by flight tracking service Flightradar24 showed.

The plane's flight history shows it was in Malta just yesterday. Source: FlightRadar24

The plane left Luqa International Airport yesterday afternoon at 5.02pm and headed to Dubai. From there it headed to Thiruvananthapuram in southern India and eventually crash-landed on its return to Dubai earlier today.

Sources told the Times of Malta that none of the flight crew on the flight that crash-landed were Maltese.

Photographs posted on social media showed a plane lying crumpled on its belly on the tarmac with black smoke pouring from its upper section.

A spokesperson for operator Dubai Airports said all passengers and crew aboard flight EK521 coming from Thiruvananthapuram had been evacuated and emergency services were managing the situation.

A man waiting for relatives who were on the flight said he had spoken to them by phone. "They said they're safe and alright, but that they felt a great panic as the plane was on fire. I'll be comfortable when I see they are safe."

Another man said his family had also told him they were OK and there had been a problem with the landing gear.

ARRIVALS, DEPARTURES SUSPENDED

Operator Dubai Airports said all arrivals and departures at Dubai International had been suspended until further notice. (Operations resumes at 6.30pm).

According to air traffic control recordings cited by Aviation Herald, a respected independent website specialising in information on air accidents, controllers at Dubai had reminded the crew of the Boeing 777 to lower the landing gear as it came into approach.

Shortly afterwards, the crew announced they were aborting the landing to "go around," a routine procedure for which pilots are well trained, but the aircraft came to rest near the end of the runway instead, Aviation Herald reported.

There was no immediate confirmation on whether the landing gear was extended when the aircraft touched the ground.

Emirates Airline initially said there had been a total of 275 passengers and crew aboard the plane, a Boeing 777-300 delivered to the airline in 2003, but later updated that number to 282 passengers and 18 crew.

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