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1 dead, 3 injured as DHL cargo plane crashes into house near Lithuania airport

Rescue services said the plane hit the ground and slid at least 100m (110 yards) before crashing into the building

Published: Mon 25 Nov 2024, 12:08 PM

  • By
  • Reuters

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Smoke billows following a DHL cargo plane crash in Vilnius, Lithuania, November 25, 2024. Photo: Reuters

Smoke billows following a DHL cargo plane crash in Vilnius, Lithuania, November 25, 2024. Photo: Reuters

A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house as it made its approach to land at Lithuania’s Vilnius airport early on Monday, killing one person and injuring three others on the aircraft, officials said.

The flight was operated by SWIFT airline on behalf of DHL and had taken off from Leipzig, Germany before the plane crashed around 3.30am GMT, a spokesperson for the governmental National Crisis Management Centre said.

The spokesperson said there was nothing to suggest an explosion preceded the crash.

"At the moment we don't have any data that there was an explosion", he said.

An airport spokesperson said the plane was a Boeing 737-400. Police told a press conference 12 people had been evacuated from the house hit by the plane.

Rescue services said the plane hit the ground and slid at least 100m (110 yards) before crashing into the building.

The head of national crisis management centre said the cause of the crash was being investigated.

Firefighters were seen at 5.30am GMT pouring water onto a smoking building some 1.3km (0.8 mile) north of the airport runway. A large police and ambulance presence was seen nearby and several nearby major streets were cordoned off.

The flight had departed from Leipzig at 2.08am GMT, Flightradar24 said on the X social media platform.

Germany is investigating several fires caused by incendiary devices hidden inside parcels at a warehouse in Leipzig earlier this year, the country's prosecutor general said in October.

British counter-terrorism police said shortly afterwards that they were investigating a warehouse fire in July, caused by a package catching alight, and liaising with other European law enforcement agencies to see if there was a connection with similar incidents elsewhere.

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