Dubai plane crash survivor hits $1m jackpot

It's been an eventful few days for Mohammad Basheer Abdul Khadar, an Indian living in Dubai.

In the space of a week, he survived a crash landing at Dubai airport, then won $1m in a lottery organised by the airport's duty free operator, the Gulf News reported. 

The 62-year-old was flying home from holidays in India with family when the Boeing 777 in which he was travelling caught fire on landing with 300 people aboard.

The accident on Thursday shut down the Middle East's busiest airport for several hours, forcing authorities to cancel hundreds of flights. All the passengers and crew escaped unharmed, but a firefighter died battling the blaze.

Just six days later, Khadar discovered that the lottery ticket he had bought on the way to India was now worth $1m.

A fleet administrator with a Dubai car dealership, Khadar told Gulf News he habitually bought a lottery ticket on his way to visit family in the southern Indian state of Kerala. 

Ticket number 845 in the "Millenium Millionaire" draw at the airport's Dubai Duty Free proved to be his winning shot. 

"I live a simple life, and now that it's my time to retire, I feel like God gave me a second life when I survived the plane crash, and blessed me with this money to follow all this up by doing good things," he told Gulf News.

Khadar has lived in Dubai for 37 years and is married with two children, one of whom is paralysed after a fall early in his childhood, according to the Gulf News.

Khadar told Gulf News he was planning to return to Kerala to retire and would use the money to help children in Kerala who need financial support.

He said he earns about $2,200  a month, and would continue to work as long as he could.

"Nothing else can give you the satisfaction of your hard-earned money," he said.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday afternoon, the head of Emirates Airline said that while a firefighter had been killed, all 282 passengers and 18 crew members aboard flight EK521 when the Boeing 777 plane crash landed had escaped safely. The company is "extending full co-operation to authorities and emergency services managing the situation".

The airline released a statement detailing the nationalities of all those on board - 226 were from India, 24 from the UK, 11 from the UAE and six from Saudi Arabia, with the remaining 27 were from 15 different states.