Schkeuditz, Saxony, November 25, 2024: A DHL cargo plane is parked at the DHL Air Hub, the air cargo center at Leipzig/Halle Airport. In the early hours of this morning, a cargo plane flying from Leipzig on behalf of postal service provider DHL crashed into a residential building near the airport in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/dpa (Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
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A DHL cargo plane crashed while landing at Vilnius Airport in Lithuania early Monday, sliding into a house and killing one person on board.
Three other people on board were injured, but no one on the ground was injured, officials said.
The flight was operated by Swiftair on behalf of DHL and departed from Leipzig, Germany.
A spokesman for Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center said the plane crashed at around 0330 GMT as it was approaching landing at its destination airport.
The spokesman said police and prosecutors were investigating the incident but there was no sign of an explosion before the crash.
“Right now we don’t have any data to suggest there was an explosion,” he said.
Counterintelligence chief Darius Janiskis told reporters: “We cannot deny the possibility of terrorism… but at the moment we cannot make an attribution or blame because we do not have such information.”
An airport spokesman said the plane was a Boeing 737-400.
Rescue services said the plane broke into pieces after hitting the ground, skidded more than 100 meters (110 yards) and hit a building.
A spokesman for the Lithuanian rescue service said one person on board died and three others were injured.
Twelve people were evacuated from the house hit by the plane, police said at a news conference. There were no local casualties.
Firefighters poured water on the smoldering building about 1.3 kilometers (0.8 miles) north of the airport’s runway, and nearby streets were blocked off.
DHL and Boeing have not responded to requests for comment.
Flightradar24 said on X that the flight departed Leipzig at 0208 GMT.
Germany is investigating several fires caused by incendiary devices hidden in packages at a Leipzig warehouse earlier this year.
British counter-terrorism police are investigating a warehouse fire that started when a package caught fire in July and are liaising with other European law enforcement agencies to determine whether it is linked to similar incidents elsewhere.
Packages that exploded at a European logistics warehouse were part of a trial run by a Russian plot to cause explosions on cargo flights to the United States, security officials told Reuters.
Leipzig airport operator Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG declined to comment on the crash.
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