The aftermath of the cargo plane crash near Vilnius Airport, Lithuania, 25 November 2024. Photo: Delfi Lithuania / Telegram
One person has died and three others have been injured after a cargo plane crashed near Lithuania’s Vilnius Airport on Monday morning, independent Lithuanian news outlet Delfi has reported.
The plane, operated by Spanish cargo airline Swiftair on behalf of German shipping company DHL, had taken off from Leipzig, Germany, and was coming in for its final approach to Vilnius Airport when it crashed near a residential building, according to the Lithuanian authorities.
All 12 occupants of the building near the crash site were safely evacuated, and Vilnius Airport has resumed flights after being briefly forced to suspend operations.
The head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre Vilmantas Vitkauskas called the crash an “accident”, adding that the circumstances and causes were still being established. However, Lithuania’s Police Commissioner General Arunas Paulauskas said that terrorism could not immediately be ruled out.
“There is a lot of work ahead. I think that it may take a whole week to examine the scene of the incident, to collect evidence, to collect items. These answers will not come soon,” Paulauskas said.
Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that European intelligence agencies had suspected that Russia was behind attempts to organise explosions on planes that DHL sent from Europe and Great Britain to the United States and Canada.
In July, parcels transported by DHL caught fire in the German city of Leipzig and in the British city of Birmingham within a few days of each other. In both cases, the cargo was originally posted from Lithuania.
