A Spanish crew member was killed and three other passengers were injured when a German DHL cargo jet struck a home while it was preparing to land at Vilnius airport in Lithuania, according to authorities.
Authorities in Lithuania, who have been looking into reports of incendiary devices being placed on cargo planes headed west for weeks, refrained from connecting the disaster to their probe.
The inquiry to determine the cause may take “about a week,” Lithuanian defence minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas told reporters, adding that there are currently no indications or proof that this was a terrorist act or sabotage.
A security source told the news weekly Die Zeit that German officials were in “close contact with the relevant institutions here and abroad to get to the bottom of the situation as quickly as possible” and that they would be starting their own probe. According to the country’s prosecutor general, Germany is already looking into a number of fires that were started earlier this year at DHL warehouses using incendiary devices concealed within packages.
According to a spokesman for the national crisis management centre, the plane crash in overcast weather at approximately 03.30 GMT after Swiftair, acting on behalf of DHL, had taken off from Leipzig, Germany.
“Fortunately, no local residents have been killed in the crash, even though it happened in a residential area,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė stated following a meeting with emergency officials. She advised against conjecture, stating that investigators required time to complete their work.
According to Šimonytė, “the responsible agencies are working diligently.” “I implore everyone to have faith in the investigative agencies’ capacity to carry out an exhaustive and expert inquiry in the most efficient amount of time. Speculation and supposition won’t help establish the truth; only these investigations will reveal the incident’s true reasons.
According to the crisis management centre spokesperson, there was no indication that the collision was preceded by an explosion. “We don’t currently have any evidence that an explosion occurred,” he stated.
