A DHL cargo plane flying from Germany to Lithuania crashed close to Vilnius Airport, killing a crew member and injuring three others, according to police.
The Boeing 737-400, which took off from the eastern German city of Leipzig, went down close to a residential home in the Lithuanian capital at about 5:30 a.m. on Monday, the police said. Fourteen people were evacuated from a damaged building as firefighters put out the blaze.
Authorities in the Baltic nation said an investigation was under way to determine what caused the crash, which occurred about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the runway. The aircraft, owned by Spanish carrier Swiftair SA, slid for a few hundred meters, they said. The pilot who was killed was a Spanish national.
The police pushed back on an earlier DHL assessment that there was an emergency landing. Preliminary information from one survivor also suggested that there was no smoke or fire inside the aircraft that could have caused the incident, said Arunas Paulauskas, the chief of the Police Department. German and Spanish experts will be joining the investigation.
The authorities urged calm and signaled that there is no initial information suggesting an act of sabotage. Still, Lithuanian officials are in touch with foreign partners as they investigate every scenario, including terrorism or sabotage, according to the nation’s intelligence chief, Darius Jauniskis.
‘In All Directions’
“We see a more aggressive Russia, foreign partners have also spoken about it publicly, speaking about threats of sabotage acts,” Jauniskis said after meeting with Lithuania President Gitanas Nauseda. “We can’t reject this scenario, but so far we can’t make any attributions or point fingers at anyone because there’s no such information.”
European and US intelligence officials had previously warned that Russia may be plotting to plant incendiary devices on planes. In August, Poland arrested four people linked to a sabotage group, whose activities included sending parcels containing camouflaged explosives and dangerous materials via courier companies to countries in the European Union and the UK.
“At the moment, we don’t see any indications that the accident was caused by external factors,” Paulauskas said. “After reviewing a number of video recordings, the preliminary assessment is that the plane was not falling, but rather landing, and there are no visible signs of external damage.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said German and Lithuanian authorities are investigating “in all directions,” including a possible hybrid attack.
“The fact that we, together with our Lithuanian and Spanish partners, now have to seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident or, after last week, another hybrid incident, shows what volatile times we live in, even in the middle of Europe,” Baerbock said in the Italian town of Fiuggi, at the sidelines of a Group of Seven foreign minister meeting.
Vilnius Airport said operations aren’t currently disrupted.
The Boeing first entered service in Australia as a passenger aircraft in 1993, according to data by tracking website planespotters.com. The jet was converted into a cargo plane in 2015. Swiftair operates both freight and smaller passenger planes and is a contractor to DHL.
Photograph: Emergency services at the DHL cargo plane crash site near Vilnius International Airport on Nov. 25, 2024. Photo credit: Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images
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