At least one person died and three others were injured after a cargo plane crashed at Lithuania’s Vilnius airport early on Monday. The Boeing 737-400, operated for DHL by the Spanish cargo airline Swiftair, was flying from Germany to Lithuania. While on its final approach for landing around 3:30 am GMT, the plane skidded ia nto house and burst into flames, a spokesperson for Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center said.
“The plane was due to land at Vilnius airport and crashed a few kilometres away,” Renatas Pozela, the head of the firefighting and emergency services unit said, adding that one person in the four-member crew died.
Footage from a nearby security camera surfaced on social media, that shows the plane descending for landing before goes out of view behind a building. Moments later, a large explosion can be seen rising in the sky from behind the building, followed by plumes of black smoke.
NEW: A DHL cargo plane flying from Germany to Lithuania crashed early Monday near the airport of the capital Vilnius killing one person, firefighters said https://t.co/mBzl6VGhJP pic.twitter.com/jv6MHiS4pY
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) November 25, 2024
According to the Vilnius mayor, Valdas Benkunskas, the plane narrowly missed directly hitting the house and instead crashed into the nearby courtyard. Police have evacuated 12 people from the house hit that caught fire after the crash.
The three crew members – one German, one Lithuanian national, and one Spanish – remain in the hospital, CNN reported quoting the Lithuanian Fire and Rescue Department. There was no report of any casualty or anyone being hurt on the ground.
The police and prosecutors are reportedly investigating the incident but there is nothing to suggest an explosion preceded the crash. Lithuania’s Counter-intelligence chief Darius Jauniskis, while talking to media, said the possibility of a terrorism angle in the crash has not been negated
“We cannot reject the possibility of terrorism…But at the moment we can’t make attributions or point fingers, because we don’t have such information,” Mr Jauniskis said.
Lithuanian rescue services said the plane hit the ground, split into pieces and slid over 100 metres (110 yards) before crashing into the building. Firefighters poured water onto the smoking building some 1.3 km (0.8 mile) north of the airport runway and nearby streets were cordoned off.
DHL official Ausra Rutkauskien confirmed the plane belonged to the company. The flight departed from Leipzig in Germany at 2:08 am GMT, Flightradar24 said on X.
