DHL cargo plane crashes in Lithuania
Local media said the aircraft smashed into a two-storey home near the airport.
A DHL cargo plane has crashed into a house near the Lithuanian capital, killing at least one person.
The head of the country’s police said plane crashed shortly before landing at Vilnius airport on Monday morning.
Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT, quoting an emergency official, said two people had been taken to hospital after the crash in Vilnius, and one was later pronounced dead.
LRT said the aircraft smashed into a two-storey home near the airport.
Police Commissioner-General Renatas Pozela said of the plane: “It fell a few kilometres before the airport, it just skidded for a few hundred metres. Its debris somewhat caught a residential house.
“Residential infrastructure around the house was on fire, and the house was slightly damaged, but we managed to evacuate people.”
The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane flying from Leipzig, Germany, to Vilnius Airport.”
It posted on the social platform X that city services including a fire truck were on site.
Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24 showed the aircraft made a turn to the north of the airport, lining up for landing, before crashing a little more than a mile short of the runway.
Authorities did not immediately offer a cause for the crash, which happed at 5.30am local time (3.30am GMT). Weather at the airport was around freezing temperature, with clouds before sunrise and winds of around 18mph.
Weather at Vilnius International Airport was around freezing temperatures, with clouds before sunrise.
DHL Group, headquartered in Bonn, Germany, did not immediately return a call for comment.
The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor. The carrier could not be immediately reached.
The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that Is not unusual for cargo flights.
