One crew member died and three survived after cargo plane crashed near Vilnius airport

A crew member died when a cargo plane crashed on the outskirts of Lithuania’s Vilnius Airport early Monday, entering a house and bursting into flames.

According to local authorities, three other people on the plane, including the pilot, and 12 people in the house were evacuated safely and survived the crash.

The cargo plane flying from Leipzig, Germany, was about to land at Vilnius Airport when it crashed a few kilometers from the runway. Fire and Rescue Department chief Renatas Pozela told reporters that the plane skidded along the ground for several hundred meters before crashing into a residential house.

“One of the crew members was found without any signs of life,” Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the country’s National Crisis Management Center, said, according to public broadcaster LRT.

The Lithuanian Fire and Rescue Agency told CNN that the three rescued crew members (one Lithuanian national, one German and one Spanish) remained hospitalized. It was stated that there was no loss of life on the ground.

A spokesman for the National Crisis Management Center later said police and prosecutors were investigating the incident, but there was no sign of an explosion before the crash.

“We do not currently have any data indicating an explosion,” the spokesman told Reuters.

Lithuania’s Counterintelligence Chief Darius Jauniskis told reporters at a press conference: “We cannot deny the possibility of terrorism. … But since we do not have such information at the moment, we cannot make a reference or point it out.”

Footage from a nearby security camera showed the plane descending before diving behind a building. Moments later, a large fireball can be seen rising into the sky from behind the building, followed by a cloud of black smoke.

The incident occurred around 5:30 a.m. local time (10 p.m. ET) near Zirniu Street in the south of the capital, an airport spokesman confirmed to CNN on Monday.

The departure of several aircraft was delayed due to “ongoing rescue efforts near Vilnius Airport”, but all scheduled flights were still departing, the spokesman said.

According to the fire brigade, the fire was taken under control at 07.33 local time.

In a statement to CNN, the logistics company said that the crashed cargo plane was a Swiftair plane operating under contract with DHL.

DHL said the plane “made an emergency landing approximately one kilometer away from VNO Airport.” It has been confirmed that there were 4 people on the plane. “The cause of the accident is still unknown and the investigation is ongoing,” DHL said.

According to a statement from Swiftair, the plane was a Boeing 737-400.

Vilnius mayor Valdas Benkunskas said the plane narrowly missed hitting the house directly, crashing into the nearby courtyard instead, LRT reported.

Lithuanian Police chief Arūnas Paulauskas said that the incident was “most likely caused by a technical malfunction or human error” but that terrorism “cannot be excluded”, according to LRT.

“This is one of the versions of the accident that will be investigated and checked. We have a lot of work ahead of us. It could take all week to gather evidence, there will be no quick answers,” Paulauskas said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Kathleen Magramo contributed reporting.

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