Gunshot hits UAE plane landing in Baghdad, flights suspended

The Foreign Ministry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has summoned the Iraqi ambassador to express its concern after a UAE-operated plane came under fire at the Baghdad International Airport on Tuesday.

UAE flights were suspended over Iraq after a bullet hit the fuselage of a Flydubai airliner on its descent into the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, lightly wounding a young girl and prompting many carriers to suspend their flights, officials said.

"There was no consequence other than a slight injury to a young girl. The pilot landed and he was not aware of what had happened," Iraqi's Transport Minister Baqr Jabr al-Zubaidi told reporters at the airport.

Flight FZ215 was hit by "small arms fire" before landing on Monday but all passengers disembarked safely, a Flydubai spokesperson told AFP news agency.

The no-frills carrier, a sister firm of Emirates Airline, said it was working with Iraqi authorities to investigate the incident, adding that it would continue to fly to other destinations in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Mohamed Mer al-Raisi called on the Iraqi authorities to launch an investigation into the incident "in order to identify the circumstances surrounding the shooting", the state-run WMA news agency reported.

Other UAE carriers, including Emirates, Etihad and Air Arabia, suspended their flights to Baghdad, as did Turkish Airlines, Lebanon's Middle East Airlines (MEA) and Royal Jordanian.

"As far as tomorrow's (flight) is concerned, we are waiting to assess the situation and see what steps are going to be taken before deciding," MEA chief executive Mohammad al-Hout said.

Minister plays down incident

Al-Zubaidi, Iraq's transport minister, said his ministry would provide flights with national carrier Iraqi Airways to all passengers stranded in airports in the region.

"What happened was an accident. Brothers from the security forces met the leaders of civil aviation and discussed the source of the shot that hit an Emirati aircraft," he said.

Zubaidi then embarked on an aircraft for a short flight around Baghdad meant to show there was no security threat. "I call on all transport ministers to push for the resumption of flights to Baghdad airport," he said after returning from the short flight.

He added that a total of 40 flights had taken off and landed on Tuesday, most of them local flights, and that more were scheduled for the rest of the day while a Turkish Airlines flight was due to land on Wednesday.

Western airlines flying over Iraq have taken extra precautions in recent months for fear that fighters from the Islamic State (IS) group might acquire weapons able to hit cruising airliners.

Baghdad International Airport is located west of the capital, near the border with Anbar province, which is largely controlled by IS fighters.