The UPS cargo plane that crashed in Dubai on 3 September was given permission to land in Doha.

An initial analysis of the downloaded data that was received from the plane’s recorders indicates that there was a fire warning followed by smoke in the cockpit just 28 minutes after take off.

“The crew were offered by Bahrain Air Traffic Control to land at Doha, but they decided to return to Dubai, then they experienced cockpit visibility and communications problems,” says the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) in a statement.

The plane’s cockpit voice recorder was recovered on 4 September and the digital flight data recorder was found on 7 September. The two recorders were both then sent to the US for analysis and data recovery.

The UPS Boeing 747 cargo plane had left Dubai International airport and was on its way to Cologne in Germany. The plane tracked then southwest and continued to lose altitude. Radar contact was lost and the plane crashed at a military base between Emirates road and the Al-Ain highway (MEED 5:9:10).

Both crew members were killed in the crash.