25 November 2024, Saxony, Schkeuditz: A DHL cargo plane at the DHL Air Hub, the air freight center at Leipzig / Halle Airport. A cargo plane taking off from Leipzig on behalf of the postal service provider DHL crashed into a residential building near the airport in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius early this morning. Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/dpa (Photo by Hendrik Schmidt/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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A DHL cargo plane crashed as it came into land at Lithuania’s Vilnius airport early on Monday, skidding into a house and killing one person on the aircraft.
The three other people onboard were injured but no one on the ground was hurt, officials said.
The scheduled flight was operated by airline Swiftair on behalf of DHL and had taken off from Leipzig, Germany.
It crashed around 0330 GMT while approaching the destination airport for landing, a spokesperson for Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center said.
Police and prosecutors are investigating the incident but there was nothing to suggest an explosion preceded the crash, the spokesperson said.
“At the moment we don’t have any data that there was an explosion,” he said.
Counter-intelligence chief Darius Jauniskis told reporters: “We cannot reject the possibility of terrorism…But at the moment we can’t make attributions or point fingers, because we don’t have such information.”
An airport spokesperson said the plane was a Boeing 737-400.
Rescue services said the plane hit the ground, split into pieces and slid over 100 metres (110 yards) before crashing into the building.
A Lithuanian rescue services spokesperson said one person onboard was killed and three injured.
Police told a press conference 12 people had been evacuated from the house hit by the plane. There were no casualties on the ground.
Firefighters poured water onto the smoking building some 1.3 km (0.8 mile) north of the airport runway and nearby streets were cordoned off.
DHL and Boeing have not yet replied to requests for comment.
The flight had departed from Leipzig at 0208 GMT, Flightradar24 said on X.
Germany is investigating several fires caused by incendiary devices hidden inside parcels at a warehouse in Leipzig earlier this year.
British counter-terrorism police are investigating a warehouse fire in July, caused by a package catching alight, and liaising with other European law enforcement agencies to see if there was a connection with similar incidents elsewhere.
Security officials have told Reuters parcels that exploded at logistics depots in Europe were part of a test run for a Russian plot to trigger explosions on cargo flights to the United States.
Leipzig Airport operator Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG declined to comment on the crash.
