Lithuanian investigators have so far found no evidence that the crash of a cargo plane from Germany in Vilnius could have been caused intentionally.
“Based on what we have and what we know now, there are no indications that it could have been an act of sabotage,” Defence Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told journalists in parliament in Vilnius on Wednesday, Lithuanian radio reported. “Nothing can be ruled out, but at the moment I have no arguments to say otherwise.”
Kasciunas said initial analyses and interviews with surviving crew members have shown that there were no external influences on the landing aircraft.
The head of the National Crisis Management Centre, Vilmantas Vitkauskas, also said that there was a “tendency towards a more technical version of the plane crash.” He hoped to gain further insights from the evaluation of the flight recorders that were recovered from the completely destroyed aircraft.
The cargo plane had taken off from Leipzig early Monday morning and was heading for Vilnius. Shortly before the planned landing, the aircraft crashed into a residential area near the airport. One of the four crew members was killed.
