In the space of a week, he survived a crash landing at Dubai airport then won $1 million in a lottery organised by the airport’s duty free operator, Gulf News reported.
The 62-year-old was flying home from holidays with family in India when the Boeing 777 in which he was travelling caught fire on landing with 300 people on board.
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 tackling the blaze.
Just six days later, Khadar discovered that the lottery ticket he’d bought on the way to India was now worth $1 million.
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.