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Dubai air crash survivor wins lottery six days later
A man who survived last week’s Emirates plane crash at Dubai airport has won $1 million with a lottery ticket he bought just before flying off on a family holiday.
Mohammad Basheer Abdul Khadar, an Indian who lives in Dubai, was on Emirates flight EK521 which crash landed at Dubai airport before bursting into flames last week.
He was returning home after a family holiday to Thiruvananthapuram in the south Indian state of Kerala.
Gulf News reports the 62-year-old claimed his winnings on Tuesday when ticket number 0845 was drawn in the Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire at Concourse A in the terminal.
He told Gulf News: "I have been working in Dubai for 37 years, and I have always felt like this is my country. 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 described his escape from the plane crash as a ‘miracle’ and said God had saved him for a ‘specific purpose’.
He plans to return to India and use his money to help people in need.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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