Dramatic images showed fire then thick black smoke billowing from the stricken Boeing 777 shortly after it came to a standstill.
There were no fatalities among the 282 passengers and 18 crew members on board, Emirates said.
"Emirates can confirm that today, 3 August 2016, flight EK521 traveling from Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, India to Dubai has been involved in an accident at Dubai International Airport," the airline said in a statement.
The majority of those on board were Indian nationals, it added.
The aircraft left Trivandrum International Airport at 10:19 a.m. and was scheduled to land at 12:50 p.m. in Dubai.
Once emergency response teams managed to extinguish the fire it was clear how deadly this accident could have been: the entire top half of the aircraft's fuselage was missing, with the belly of the plane slumped on the tarmac.
