DHL cargo plane crashes in Lithuania
One person has died and three more have been injured after a DHL cargo plane crashed in Lithuania, near Vilnius airport in the early hours of Monday, 25th November. The Boeing 737, operated for DHL by Spanish cargo airline Swiftair, crashed near a house as it made its final landing approach, according to local authorities.
All 12 people on board have been safely evacuated from a nearby property. Rescue services said that all on board from Leipzig in Germany are accounted for.
The plane took off from the DHL hub at Leipzig Airport around 03:00 local time (02:00 GMT), crashing around an hour and a half later, data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 revealed. Flight operations have continued at Vilnius airport while authorities respond to the crash, the tracking website said on X
Firefighters were tackling smoke coming out of a building just under a mile north of the runway, according to Reuters.
The cause of the crash is not yet known. Authorities in Lithuania have begun an investigation. DHL confirmed that it owned the plane, reporting that it had made an “emergency landing.” Authorities currently do not have any data that suggests any explosions before the crash.
Renatas Pozela, the head of the Lithuanian firefighting and emergency services unit, said that the plane was scheduled to land at the airport, before it “crashed a few kilometres away.”
One member of the four-person crew has died, he said. A nearby house, he added, had been “slightly damaged,” and infrastructure near it caught fire. Alll residents were safely evacuated however.
The plane was a 31-year-old Boeing 737-400, according to an airport spokesperson. The weather before the crash was reported at being 0C, cloudy before sunrise, and with 19mph (30km/h) winds, according to the Associated Press.
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