The fatal crash of a DHL cargo plane as it approached Vilnius airport could have been the result of sabotage or an accident, Germany’s foreign minister has said.
A Spanish crew member was killed and three others injured when the German plane crashed into a house near the Lithuanian capital on Monday.
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, raised the possibility that the crash had been caused on purpose, telling reporters: “We must now seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident or whether it was another hybrid incident,” in an allusion to the recent severing of cables in the Baltic Sea that officials have said could have been sabotage.
“The German authorities are working very closely with the Lithuanian authorities to get to the bottom of this,” she added.
Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius later said later that there were as yet “no findings” suggesting there had been an explosive charge on the aircraft.
Germany is already investigating several fires caused by incendiary devices hidden inside parcels at DHL warehouses earlier this year, the country’s prosecutor general has said.
Lithuanian authorities stopped short of linking the crash with that investigation.
“So far, there are no signs or evidence suggesting this was sabotage or a terrorist act,” the Lithuanian defence minister, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, told reporters, adding that the investigation to establish the cause could take “about a week”.
German officials said they would be launching their own investigation and were in “close contact with the relevant institutions here and abroad to get to the bottom of the situation as quickly as possible”, a security source told the news weekly Die Zeit.
The flight was operated by Swiftair on behalf of DHL and had taken off from Leipzig, Germany, before the plane crashed in overcast conditions at about 03.30 GMT, a spokesperson for Lithuania’s national crisis management centre said.
“Thankfully, despite the crash occurring in a residential area, no lives have been lost among the local population,” the Lithuanian prime minister, Ingrida Šimonytė, said after meeting with rescue officials. She cautioned against speculation, saying investigators needed time to do their job.
“The responsible agencies are working diligently,” Šimonytė said. “I urge everyone to have confidence in the investigating authorities’ ability to conduct a thorough and professional investigation within an optimal timeframe. Only these investigations will uncover the true causes of the incident; speculation and guesswork will not help establish the truth.”
The crisis management centre spokesperson said there was nothing to suggest an explosion preceded the crash. “At the moment we don’t have any data that there was an explosion,” he said.
Lithuania’s counter-intelligence chief, Darius Jauniškis, 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.”
The general commissioner of the Lithuanian police, Arūnas Paulauskas, said investigators were considering possible causes, including technical failure and human error.
An airport spokesperson said the plane was a Boeing 737-400. The airport said in a statement that because of rescue work in the area, several departures were delayed and one incoming flight was diverted to Riga.
Police told a press conference that 12 people had been evacuated from the house hit by the plane. Rescue services said the aircraft hit the ground and slid at least 100 metres (110 yards) before crashing into the building, setting it ablaze.
Stanislovas Jakimavicius, who lives about 300 metres from the crash site, told AFP: “We were woken by the sound of an explosion. Through the window, we saw the wave of explosions and a cloud of fire. Like fireworks.”
The three crew members who were injured were Spanish, German and Lithuanian citizens, said Ramūnas Matonis, the head of communications for Lithuanian police.
Firefighters were seen at 05.30 GMT pouring water on to a smoking building 0.8 miles (1.3km) north of the airport runway. A large police and ambulance presence was seen nearby and main streets nearby were cordoned off.
The flight had departed from Leipzig at 02.08 GMT, Flightradar24 said on X. Neither DHL nor Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor, offered immediate comment.
Earlier this month, Lithuania carried out arrests as part of a criminal investigation into the sending of 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 the UK in July and could have been behind a lorry fire outside Warsaw.
Poland and Lithuania, both Nato members bordering Russia, are staunch allies of Ukraine and have frequently warned of Russian-inspired sabotage on EU soil. Moscow has denied any involvement.
In October, after Germany’s investigation came to light, British counter-terrorism police said they were investigating a warehouse blaze in July which was caused by a package catching fire, and liaising with other European law enforcement agencies to see if there was a connection with similar incidents elsewhere.
Reuters, Associated Press and AFP contributed to this report
