DHL cargo plane crashes near Vilnius airport in Lithuania – DW – November 25, 2024

A cargo plane operating for German logistics company DHL crashed near Vilnius International Airport in Lithuania early Monday, killing at least one person, according to Lithuanian officials.

Lithuanian police confirmed that the deceased was a Spanish citizen and a member of the flight crew, but not one of the pilots.

The plane’s other occupants – a German, a Lithuanian and another Spaniard – were reportedly injured, but their condition remained unclear.

What did DHL say?

“We can confirm that at approximately 4:30 a.m. CET (03:30 GMT) today, a Swiftair aircraft, operated by a service partner on behalf of DHL, made an emergency landing approximately one kilometer from VNO Airport (Vilnius, Lithuania). route from LEJ Airport (Leipzig, Germany) to VNO Airport,” the German company said.

A spokesman for DHL Lithuania told Reuters that the company had opened an investigation, adding: “We have no information that any of the packages on board the crashed cargo plane were suspicious.”

The German investigators also said they were “in close contact with those involved at home and abroad in order to clarify the matter as quickly as possible.”

Airplane manufacturer Boeing also said it was “working to gather more information” and was “ready to provide any assistance.”

The cause of the crash is still unknown and terrorism cannot be ruled out

The cause of the crash was not initially known, but Lithuania’s police chief Arunas Paulauskas did not rule out terrorism as a motive.

“This is one of the versions that needs to be investigated and verified. There is still a lot of work ahead of us,” Paulauskas said at a press conference.

“Those answers will not come quickly,” he added, saying that investigating the crime scene, collecting evidence and collecting information and items could take a full week.

“Without a doubt, we cannot rule out the terrorism version,” said Darius Jauniskis, head of Lithuanian intelligence.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock did not rule out sabotage and said the question must be asked whether it was a “hybrid incident.”

“We now have to seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident or whether it was another hybrid incident,” Annalena Baerbock told reporters at the G7 foreign ministers meeting, Baerbock said on the sidelines of the G7 foreign ministers meeting in Italy.

According to emergency services, emergency services were alerted to the crash at 5:28 a.m. local time (0328 GMT).

Vinca Snirpunas, a lecturer at the Aviation Institute at Vilnius University of Technology, told DW that based on initial signs, “we see no evidence of sabotage or intentional actions that caused this accident.”

He said the plane was on a typical approach to Vilnius before encountering difficulties just a few kilometers above the ground.

“We saw that there was no contact with the Vilnius Airport tower. Therefore, we can assume that there were some difficulties during the operation or flying of the aircraft shortly before the crash.”

What do we know so far about the DHL crash?

The aircraft, operated by Swiftair, originated in the German city of Leipzig, a hub for DHL.

“It crashed a few kilometers from the airport, slid only a few hundred meters, its debris hit a residential building,” said Renatas Pozela, the head of Lithuania’s rescue service.

“The residential infrastructure around the house burned and the house sustained minor damage, but we managed to evacuate people,” he added.

According to authorities, twelve residents were evacuated from the building.

Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas said the plane “accidentally” missed the house and crashed into the yard.

A series of incidents related to the cargo

German security services warned in August against the posting of “unconventional incendiary objects” via freight services.

There were warnings in connection with an object that caught fire in the DHL logistics center in Leipzig in July and was allegedly sent from the Baltics.

Similar incidents were also reported in July when equipment caught fire at courier depots near Warsaw, Poland, and Birmingham, UK. Lithuanian Attorney General Nida Grunskiene stated that the packages came from Lithuania.

Both Poland and Lithuania border the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, and sabotage has not been ruled out.

“I can say that this is part of unconventional kinetic operations against NATO countries carried out by Russian military intelligence,” Kestutis Budrys, a national security adviser to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, told Reuters in early November.

“We are seeing these operations escalate: their focus is shifting… to damage to infrastructure and actions that could ultimately lead to the death of people,” he added.

Moscow has rejected the allegations.

kb,dvv/msh (Reuters, dpa, AP)

Correction, 11/25/2024: An earlier version of this article referred to Nida Grunskiene as the Polish Attorney General instead of the Lithuanian one. This has now been corrected. We apologize for the error.