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The earlier incident was of Etihaad. This one is Emirates. Both are different. The latter, in fact, is quite highly rated.

As for the pilots' nationalities:

The devil is in the data

Cameron Stewart, Associate editor | September 12, 2009

At Melbourne airport, a 42-year-old Danish pilot was sitting in the cockpit of his Emirates Airbus with his Canadian co-pilot running through their preflight checklist in preparation for their 14 1/2-hour flight to Dubai.

The captain had been flying for 22 years, including almost five years with Emirates and was familiar with Melbourne airport, having flown there at least four times in the previous six months.

He was also familiar with the Airbus, having clocked up 1372 hours on it. But he was tired. He had flown 98.9 hours in the past month, more than Qantas pilots are allowed to fly and barely short of Emirate's monthly limit of 100 hours. The pilot would later claim to have had only 3 1/2 hours sleep in the previous 24 hours because he was "out of whack" despite spending the previous 24 hours resting in Melbourne.

His Canadian first officer was less experienced, having spent 425 hours on the A340-500, but he would be responsible for take-off.

In the cockpit with them were two other Emirates pilots, who would take the second half of the long-haul flight. Behind them the wide-bodied jet was beginning to fill up with passengers. It was the usual assortment of holiday-makers, businesspeople and those for whom Dubai was a transit to other parts of the globe.

One of these was Roman Korobitson, who was travelling with his wife Irena and their two-year-old son to a family reunion in Russia.