Fatal crash: DHL cargo plane crashes in Lithuania

A cargo plane linking Germany and Lithuania crashed Monday morning near the airport in Vilnius, killing at least one person, 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 reporters, adding that one of the four members of the crew was found dead.

“All four crew members have been found. Unfortunately, one of them was pronounced dead,” he said.

The cargo plane from German logistics group DHL was making an “emergency landing,” the company said in a statement. The cause of the incident is currently unknown, and “an investigation is already underway,” DHL added. The accident occurred around 4:30 a.m. Swiss time, involving a Swiftair plane, operated by a DHL partner.

Authorities who have opened an investigation are not yet ruling out any reason for the crash, including an act of terrorism.

“It is premature to associate it (the crash) with anything,” Darius Jauniskis, head of Lithuanian intelligence services, told the press. We work with our foreign partners to obtain all possible information. We cannot rule out the possibility of a terrorist act,” he said.

“We warned that such things were possible, we see an increasingly aggressive Russia, (…) but we cannot yet (…) point the finger at people,” Mr. Jauniskis further declared.

At the beginning of November, several people were arrested in Lithuania and Poland in the case of incendiary packages sent by plane to different European countries, the traces of which could, according to several capitals, lead to Russia.

A house on fire

During the crash, followed by a fire, a house caught fire. The authorities specified that all residents had been evacuated safely.

An AFP photographer present on site was able to see the wreckage of the aircraft and the house.

DHL confirmed that the plane belonged to them. “I can confirm that more than one cargo was transported, these were shipments from various customers,” Ausra Rutkauskien, a DHL Lithuania manager, told local media.

This summer, packages containing incendiary devices were found in the warehouses of the logistics group DHL in Germany and Great Britain, where 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,” Kestutis Budrys said.

The Lithuanian airport clarified on X that the DHL cargo plane was flying from Leipzig in Germany to Vilnius airport. The crash took place at 5:30 a.m. local time in Liepkalnis, near the capital’s airport. At 7:30 a.m., flights took off normally.

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AFP/Mathilde Schott

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