A violent crash occurred near Vilnius airport, Lithuania, this Monday morning. At least one victim is to be deplored.
A DHL cargo plane linking Germany and Lithuania crashed Monday morning near the airport in Vilnius, killing at least one person and injuring three, firefighters said.
“The plane was supposed to land at Vilnius airport and crashed a few kilometers from the airport“Renatas Pozela, head of the fire and rescue service, told the press, adding that one of the four crew members was found dead.
“All four crew members have been found. Unfortunately, one of them was pronounced dead”he said. According to DHL, the plane was in the process of carrying out a “emergency landing”.
During the crash, followed by a fire, a house caught fire. The authorities specified that all residents (12 people, editor's note) had been evacuated safely.
An AFP photographer present on site was able to see the wreckage of the aircraft and the house.
“We were woken up by the sound of an explosion. Through the window we saw the explosion wave and a cloud of fire”Stanislovas Jakimavicius, aged 65 and who lives 300 meters from the crash zone, told AFP. “Like fireworks (…) Everything then burned with a lot of smoke”he added.
What caused the crash?
The authorities, who have opened an investigation, remain cautious about the causes of the crash, while not ruling out a terrorist act.
“It is premature to associate (the crash) with anything”Darius Jauniskis, the head of Lithuanian intelligence services, told the press. “We are working with our foreign partners to obtain all possible information. We cannot rule out the possibility of a terrorist act”he said.
“We have warned that such things are possible, we see an increasingly aggressive Russia, (…) but we cannot yet (…) point fingers” anyone, said Mr. Jauniskis.
According to Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas, there is currently no “no signs or evidence to suggest that this was sabotage or a terrorist act”.
Investigators went to the hospital to question the three injured crew members, while the plane's black boxes are to be analyzed to determine if they are “a technical error, a pilot error or something else”he added, specifying that the investigation “could last about a week”.
Russia and the incendiary packages affair
At the beginning of November, several people were arrested in Lithuania and Poland in a case of incendiary packages sent by plane to different European countries, the traces of which could, according to several capitals, lead to Russia.
This summer, packages containing incendiary devices were found in DHL warehouses in Germany and Great Britainwhere they caught fire.
In Poland, a package also set fire to a DHL truck, according to the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
An adviser to the Lithuanian president for national security then attributed this operation to Russia.
“We need to neutralize and dismantle the source, and we know who is behind these operations. This is Russian military intelligence“declared Kestutis Budrys.
German intelligence had previously also pointed the finger at the Russian Federation.
On October 14 during a hearing in the Bundestag, the head of German Domestic Intelligence (BfV) Thomas Haldenwang openly accused Moscow of being behind the “DHL affair”, referring to the case of a package that had caught fire at a center of the carrier DHL in Leipzig in July.
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