AP, VILNIUS
A DHL cargo plane yesterday morning crashed on approach to an airport in Lithuania’s capital and skidded into a nearby house, killing a Spanish crew member, officials said.
The cause of the accident is under investigation.
The head of the country’s firefighting service said that the plane skidded a few hundred meters and photographs showed smoke rising from a damaged structure in an area of barren trees.
The wreckage of a cargo plane lies in the courtyard of a house following its crash near the Vilnius International Airport yesterday.
Photo: AFP
A surveillance video from a nearby company showed the plane descending normally as it approached the airport, and then exploding into a huge ball of fire behind a building. The moment of impact could not be seen in the video.
Rescue workers sealed off the area, and fragments of the plane in the company’s trademark yellow color could be seen amid wreckage scattered across the crash site.
The cargo aircraft was carrying four people when it crashed at 5:30am. One person, a Spanish citizen, was declared dead and the other three crew members — who were Spanish, German and Lithuanians — were injured, Lithuanian police head of communications Ramunas Matonis said in an e-mail.
Matonis added that the circumstances of the accident were still being investigated.
“Residential infrastructure around the house was on fire, and the house was slightly damaged, but we managed to evacuate people,” Fire and Rescue Department chief Renatas Pozela said.
One eyewitness, who gave her name only as Svaja, ran to a window when a light as bright as a red sun filled her room, and then heard an explosion followed by flashes and black smoke.
“I saw a fireball,” she said. “My first thought is that a world [war] has begun and it’s time to grab the documents and run somewhere to a shelter, to a basement.”
Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT, quoting an emergency official, said two people had been taken to the hospital after the crash, and one was pronounced dead.
The person who was killed was a member of the flight crew, but not a pilot, officials said. Firefighters freed two pilots from the cockpit, one of whom was more seriously injured, General Commissioner of the Lithuanian Police Arunas Paulauskas said.
Paulauskas told a news conference that the cause of the crash was under investigation. He said officers went to the hospital to interview the crew members.
He added that investigators were considering possible causes, including technical failure and human error, and have not ruled out the possibility of a terrorist act.
The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a DHL cargo plane arriving from Leipzig, Germany, which is a major freight hub.
Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24, analyzed by the AP, showed the aircraft made a turn to the north of the airport, lining up for landing, before crashing a little more than 1.5km short of the runway.
