Authorities in the Baltic republic of Lithuania said Monday that a DHL freight jet killed one person on board and injured three others when it crashed into a house in Vilnius, the capital.
Less than a mile from the airport where it was headed, the plane crashed on Pea Street, a major thoroughfare that runs through Leipzig, Germany, around 5:30 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. ET on Sunday).
“A cargo plane carrying four people crashed close to Vilnius International Airport at 5:30 AM local time, according to early statistics. In an emailed statement to NBC News, Lithuania’s national police agency said, “One person was declared dead, three injured.”
“It turned out that a cargo plane had crashed and a residential house caught fire,” the Department of Fire Protection and Rescue stated in a statement. Initial data indicates that firefighters removed one deceased person and rescued three victims from the plane’s wreckage.
An investigation into the crash’s cause has begun.
The survival of the house’s occupants was certified by a representative of the government’s National Crisis Management Center, according to Reuters. Twelve individuals were evacuated from the house, according to police at a recent briefing.
Although it would not confirm their status, the Republic Vilnius University Hospital informed Lithuania’s state broadcaster LRT that it was providing treatment to two crash victims.
In a statement, Vilnius Airport acknowledged the collision and reported that rescue crews and special services were on the site.
DHL has been contacted by NBC News for comment.
As the crash inquiry gets underway, curiosity will shift to whether sabotage may have been involved.
Western security officials accused Russian spies earlier this month of delivering two incendiary devices to DHL hubs in Germany and the UK as part of a larger conspiracy to ignite fires on planes that were headed for the United States.
A DHL shipment exploded in a Leipzig DHL depot in July, and another item caught fire at a Birmingham, England, DHL depot.
Four people were detained by Polish police in relation to the conspiracy.
The saboteurs’ objective, according to Poland’s national prosecutor’s office, was to test the transfer channel for the packages, which were eventually going to be shipped to Canada and the United States of America.
Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called these accusations “vague misinformation” and claimed they lacked evidence.
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