Investigations are under way after a DHL cargo plane travelling from Germany to Lithuania crashed on Monday, killing one person and injuring three.
The head of the Lithuanian rescue service, Renatas Požėla, said the plane, which had set off from Leipzig, crashed a few kilometres from Vilnius airport and skidded on the ground several hundred metres. Its debris hit a residential building, causing a fire.
Požėla added that the area is not densely populated and the building’s 12 residents were safely evacuated from the burning building.
Police said the person who died was a Spanish crew member. The three others on board – another Spaniard, a German and a Lithuanian – were wounded and taken to hospital.
Emergency services were first alerted to the crash at 5:31 am. Many of the plane’s parts were scattered after the impact, a Lithuanian radio journalist reported from the accident scene in the Liepkalnis district.
A spokeswoman for the Lithuanian rescue service told the Elta news agency that the aircraft – belonging to the Spanish airline Swift Air and under contract with DHL – was completely destroyed in the crash.
Lithuania and Germany not ruling out deliberate crash
Lithuanian and German authorities have launched investigations into the cause of the crash, with staff from Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation set to arrive to the site on Monday evening, a spokesman for the Transport Ministry told journalists in Berlin.
The Lithuanian police chief Arunas Paulauskas said that officials had already spoken to one of the injured crew members in hospital. The man confirmed that nothing unusual such as smoke or a fire had happened before the crash.
Paulauskas said the aircraft had tried to land but did not reach the runway and the crash was “most likely due to a technical error or human error.”
At the same time, when asked whether it could have been a terrorist attack, Paulauskas said such a scenario could not yet be ruled out: “This is one of the versions of the crash that needs to be investigated and verified. There is still a lot of work ahead of us.”
Lithuanian Defence Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas told journalists earlier that there was no evidence so far that the crash was the result of sabotage or a terrorist attack.
Kasčiūnas called for patience, saying the investigation could take “about a week,” as investigating officers would need to inspect the scene, collect evidence, evaluate the plane’s data recorder and contents and speak to all surviving crew members.
Initial searches find no suspicious contents
The German logistics giant DHL said on Monday that there was no evidence of suspicious packages on board the aircraft.
“At this point in time, we have no information that indicates anything unusual or suspicious,” said Ausra Rutkauskiene, the sales and marketing manager at DHL Lithuania.
She added that the company would not comment further while the investigations into the cause of the crash are ongoing.
“We don’t want to speculate,” she was quoted as saying by Lithuanian media.
Rutkauskiene confirmed that the aircraft was transporting parcels for customers.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius also said his ministry has no information about a possible explosive device on board the DHL aircraft.
Germany had issued warning to logistics firms
At the end of August, German security authorities started warning about “unconventional incendiary devices” being sent by unknown individuals using parcel service providers.
At the time, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, known by its German acronym BfV, and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) issued an alert about the apparent threat to companies in the aviation and logistics sector.
The warning was reportedly linked in security circles to an incident at the DHL logistics centre in Leipzig, which serves as the company’s global hub. In July, a package sent from the Baltic States, which reportedly contained an incendiary device, is said to have caught fire there.
The warning from BfV and BKA did not mention Russia. Nonetheless, security sources have reportedly not ruled out a connection, given the increasing cases of Russian sabotage in Germany.
There was no initial information about any link between Monday’s crash and a possible sabotage event.
Lithuanian and German officials open to any outcome
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda visited the site of the crash alongside Germany’s ambassador to the Baltic republic Cornelius Zimmermann and his Spanish colleague María Nieves Blanco Díaz.
“The investigation is still ongoing and is being carried out by experts in their field. I have no doubt that everything will be clarified and clarified in detail,” Nausėda said earlier on Monday.
The Lithuanian president emphasized the need to be prepared for all possible outcomes: “We do not know what the conclusions of the investigation will be, but it is clear that we will never panic and make decisions that are not based on facts.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said authorities in both countries are currently investigating “in all directions” and called for full clarification of the accident.
Speaking on the fringes of a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in the Italian town of Fiuggi, Baerbock did not rule out the possibility of a deliberately caused crash.
“This underlines the times we are living in,” Baerbock said, referring to several recent “hybrid attacks” on individuals or infrastructure in Europe.
Protecting critical infrastructure is therefore particularly important now, she stressed.
Baerbock did not make any direct accusations against individuals or states following the crash.
However, with regard to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, she added: “The Russian president will not do us the favour of taking into account that Christmas is just around the corner or even the German parliamentary elections.”
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with the defence officials of France, the United Kingdom, Poland and Italy in Berlin, Pistorius also spoke of the dangers to logistics infrastructure: “It is now a matter of increasing sensitivity for certain freight shipments.”
“At the same time, we also know that there is probably no such thing as 100% security in this field. But the gaps that exist and that we recognize must be closed,” Pistorius said.
