Photo Credit:Associated Press
A DHL cargo plane crashed early Monday near the airport in Lithuania's capital, killing one person, authorities said as they searched for clues to what caused the tragedy.
Lithuanian officials, who in the past weeks have been probing alleged acts of sending incendiary devices on Western-bound cargo planes, stopped short of linking the crash with that investigation.It is premature to associate it with anything or to make any attributions, State
Security Department chief Darius Jauniskis told reporters. Images from the crash site in the capital Vilnius showed debris from the plane and packages on fire scattered across the residential area cordoned off by the emergency services.
We cannot rule out the case of terrorism. We have warned that such things are possible, we see an increasingly aggressive Russia... but we cannot make any attributions or point fingers yet, Jauniskis said.
According to the Lithuanian police, the plane, flying from the eastern German city of Leipzig, skidded several hundred metres, hitting the residential house which was set on fire, smaller buildings, and a car.
Renatas Pozela, head of the firefighting and rescue department, said one person from the plane's four-member crew died in the crash that happened as the plane was due to land in Vilnius. Head of National Crisis Management Centre
Vilmantas Vitkauskas said the residential building was successfully evacuated, with its 12 residents moved to safety.
German logistics company DHL said the cargo aircraft was operated by its partner SwiftAir and had made an "emergency landing in Lithuania. We can confirm that today, at approximately 4:30 am CET, a Swiftair aircraft, operated by a service partner on behalf of DHL, performed an emergency landing about one kilometre from VNO Airport (Vilnius, Lithuania) while en route from LEJ Airport (Leipzig, Germany) to VNO Airport," it said in a statement.
Lithuanian police Chief Arunas Paulauskas said investigators had gone to the hospital to talk to the pilots. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash.
