DHL plane crash in Lithuania leaves authorities searching for answers

A DHL cargo plane crashed when it came in to land at Lithuania's Vilnius airport on Monday morning, killing one person in what Germany's foreign minister later said could be an accident or a hybrid attack in “volatile times”.

The three other people on-board were injured, and at least one was in critical condition. Flames and smoke engulfed the wrecked plane as fire crews worked to extinguish the blaze.

Lithuanian officials said there was no indication of sabotage so far, though Germany is investigating several fires caused by incendiary devices hidden inside parcels at a warehouse in Leipzig for delivery by DHL earlier this year. German authorities were also investigating Monday's crash.

European countries have repeatedly expressed concerns about the vulnerability of civilian infrastructure, misgivings which reared their head after the unexplained severing of two fibreoptic cables in the Baltic Sea last week.

“We, together with our Lithuanian and Spanish partners, must seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident or, after last week, another hybrid incident showing what volatile times we are living in, even in the centre of Europe,” said German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock.

“The German authorities are working very closely with the Lithuanian authorities to get to the bottom of this,” she said.

The Boeing 737-400 jet, which went down at 03.30 GMT, was operated by airline Swiftair on behalf of DHL, a German logistics group, and had left Leipzig in Germany at 02.08 GMT, according to Flightradar24. The US National Transportation Safety Board is leading a team of board investigators that will also include Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration to travel to Lithuania to assist Lithuania's ministry of justice transport and accident investigation of the crash.

Lithuanian counterintelligence 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.”

A senior European intelligence official said nothing was being ruled out.

DHL said the plane, which was arriving from Leipzig, “made a forced landing” about 1km from the Vilnius airport and the cause of the crash was unknown.

Lithuanian officials said there had been no signs of anything extraordinary from the pilots during radio contact with the aircraft.

“In the recording of the conversation between the pilots and the tower, the pilots until the very last second did not tell the tower of any extraordinary event,” said Marius Baranauskas, head of the Lithuanian national aviation authority.

“We need to examine the black boxes to know what was happening in the aircraft.”

Vilnius resident Kotryna Ciupailaite said the aircraft flew low over her car while she was driving to work.

“The right wing of the plane turned down before it crashed, as if it was trying to turn. There was something shiny coming out of the right side of the plane, like sparks or a flame, before it hit the ground,” said Ciupailaite.

She shared a video with Reuters shot through her vehicle's windshield, which she said was filmed shortly after the crash, showing a big fire beyond trees.

“Oh my God,” she was heard saying in the video.

Swiftair said the plane went down in a residential area near Vilnius airport, and it had set up a call centre to assist the relatives of those affected.