Vilnius (AFP) – A DHL cargo plane crashed Monday near the Lithuanian capital’s airport, killing one crew member, but authorities stopped short of linking the tragedy to a recent series of sabotage cases. Lithuanian officials have in past weeks probed alleged acts of incendiary devices being planted on cargo planes. The plane, which had arrived from the German city of Leipzig, crashed about one kilometer (0.6 miles) from Vilnius airport after hitting several buildings as it skidded several hundred meters, according to the police and the DHL company.
Images from the crash site showed debris from the plane and packages on fire scattered across a residential area cordoned off by the emergency services. “So far, there are no signs or evidence suggesting this was sabotage or a terrorist act,” Defence Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told reporters, adding that the probe to establish the cause could take “about a week.” “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,” State Security Department chief Darius Jauniskis said.
Echoing the claim, Lithuania’s Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte urged people in a social media post to “refrain from jumping to conclusions” during the investigation. According to police, the plane skidded several hundred meters, hitting a residential building which caught fire, along with smaller buildings and a car. Firefighters said one of the four crew members died in the crash. Police reported that the deceased person was Spanish, while the three other crew members were Spanish, German, and Lithuanian nationals, one of whom was critically injured. The emergency services stated that the house hit by the plane was evacuated and its 12 residents moved to safety.
“We were woken by an explosion. Through the window, we saw the wave of explosions and a cloud of fire. Like fireworks,” Stanislovas Jakimavicius, who lives near the crash site, told AFP.
German logistics company DHL stated that the aircraft was operated by its partner SwiftAir and had been attempting an “emergency landing.” “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 kilometer from VNO Airport (Vilnius, Lithuania) while en route from LEJ Airport (Leipzig, Germany) to VNO Airport,” it said in a statement. A German transport ministry official noted that the country’s Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation “will support the investigation on site.” It was not immediately clear what caused the crash.
Earlier this month, Lithuania carried out arrests as part of a criminal probe into sending incendiary devices on Western-bound planes. According to Polish and Lithuanian media, the devices, including electric massagers implanted with a flammable substance, were sent from Lithuania to Britain in July and could be behind a lorry fire outside Warsaw. UK anti-terrorism police last month stated they were investigating how a parcel burst into flames at a depot earlier this year, after a similar case in Germany was blamed on Russia.
The Lithuanian president’s chief security advisor blamed Moscow for the incidents. “We know who the source of these operations is. It is Russian military intelligence,” Kestutis Budrys told Ziniu radio earlier this month. “We cannot let this go unanswered as it will only escalate into new kinds of actions,” Budrys added. Poland and Lithuania, both NATO members bordering Russia, are staunch allies of Ukraine, frequently warning about Russian-inspired sabotage on EU soil.
© 2024 AFP
