[WATCH] Updated | Emirates plane crash-lands at Dubai airport, no casualties

Maltese cabin crew members of Emirates Airlines have taken to social media to reassure their friends and relatives that they are safe and sound and to praise their colleagues on board Flight EK521 that burst into flames after crash-landing at Dubai International Airport on Wednesday.

All 282 passengers and 18 crew members on board were evacuated to safety.

Talisa Pace, who joined Emirates in 2015, wrote on her Facebook page: “To all my friends and family i am safe , just landed in dubai from my flight now!”

She also praised her colleagues on board the Boeing 777 and included a barb for all those who did not appreciate the work that flight attendants do.

“This is what we are trained for :) We're not only there to serve food and drinks but we are trained very well from our company for this kind of incidents!”

Pace wrote that this should serve as a lesson to those who did not always appreciate flight attendants insisting on seat-belts being fastened during take-offs and landings and when hitting turbulence.

“I'm vey glad no one got hurt and again very good job to everyone on the flight xxx,” she wrote.

VIDEO: 282 passengers being evacuated from @emirates flight #EK521 seconds before explosion after it crash landedhttps://t.co/NrkqblRwii

— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) August 3, 2016

Passengers on the plane said that minutes before the flight crash-landed, the pilot announced that he needed to make an emergency landing, and within minutes of the cabin crew opening the emergency exits all people on board were evacuated.

226 of the passengers were Indian, 24 Britons, 11 from the UAE and six from the US and Saudi Arabia.

How on earth you take your bag on an emergency landing !!! @emirates #Emirates pic.twitter.com/bLNXhX4WVm

— Bobby Deol (@thebobbydeoll) August 3, 2016

Flight data showed that the plane began to gain altitude for a short while before hitting the runway.

The Boeing 777 aircraft with flight number flight EK521 was flying from Trivandrum International Airport in the Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai when it declared the emergency.

According to live flight tracking monitor Flightradar 24, the Emirates aircraft was in Malta on Tuesday. It left Luqa at 5:02pm and headed to Dubai. From there it headed to India before making its way back to Dubai earlier Wednesday.

The Flightradar 24 website also said the plane has been in service for 13 years.

Aviation experts are investigating the possibility of faulty landing gear as a cause of the crash-landing.

While all those on board were evacuated safely, a firefighter tackling the blaze was killed.

The airline’s chair and chief executive, Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, paid tribute to the fallen firefighter. “We pay tribute to the firefighter who lost his life fighting the blaze. We thank all teams that dealt with the incident.”

The Indian ambassador to the UAE, TP Seetharam, said many passengers were in shock and only one person, a crew member, had been taken to hospital.

Video footage released online showed that the plane appeared to have come down on its belly without the use of its wheels, giving weight to the theory that the landing gear was at fault.

Monitoring site The Aviation Herald said that according to air traffic control recordings, no emergency was declared by the aircraft but the control tower reminded the crew to lower the gear as it cleared it to land.