DHL cargo plane crashes and skids into a house in Lithuania, killing Spanish crew member

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — A DHL cargo plane crashed on approach to an airport in Lithuania’s capital and skidded into a house Monday morning, killing a Spanish crew member, officials said. The cause of the accident is under investigation.

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.

The head of the country’s firefighting service said that the plane skidded a few hundred meters (yards), and photos showed smoke rising from a damaged structure in an area of barren trees.

“Thankfully, despite the crash occurring in a residential area, no lives have been lost among the local population,” Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said after meeting with rescue officials.

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 5:30 a.m. local time. One person, a Spanish citizen, was declared dead and the other three crew members — who were Spanish, German and Lithuanian citizens — were injured, said Ramūnas Matonis, the head of communications for Lithuanian police in an email.

The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor. Neither DHL nor Swiftair offered immediate comment.

“Residential infrastructure around the house was on fire, and the house was slightly damaged, but we managed to evacuate people,” said Renatas Požėla, chief of the Fire and Rescue Department.

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’s 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, according to the General Commissioner of the Lithuanian Police Arūnas Paulauskas.

He said that investigators were considering possible causes including technical failure and human error, and have not ruled out the possibility of a terrorist act.

The prime minister 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 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 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) short of the runway.

Weather at the airport was around freezing at the time of the crash, with clouds before sunrise and winds around 30 kph (18 mph).

The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that’s not unusual for cargo flights.