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One dead and three injured in Lithuania cargo-jet crash

AFP via Getty Images Wreckage of a crashed plane with emergency services staff at the sceneAFP via Getty Images

At least one person has died and three others have been injured after a cargo plane crashed near Vilnius airport in Lithuania in the early hours of Monday.

The Boeing 737, operated for DHL by the Spanish cargo airline Swiftair, crashed near a house as it was on its final approach for landing, local authorities said.

All 12 people have been safely evacuated from the property, police said.

The cause of the crash is still unclear but the defence minister said there were no initial signs it was sabotage or terrorism.

AFP via Getty Images Wreckage of the plane, which looks to be an engine, in a residential area, with a car parked in front of a houseAFP via Getty Images
Debris from the plane "somewhat caught a residential house", Mr Pozela said

The aircraft departed from DHL's hub at Leipzig Airport in Germany just after 03:00 local time (02:00 GMT) and crashed around an hour and a half later, according to Flightradar24. DHL said the plane had made an "emergency landing".

Images from the scene show chunks of blackened wreckage scattered among the trees.

"The plane was landing, but it fell a few kilometres before the airport, skidded for several hundred meters, its wreckage caught a residential building," said Renatas Pozela, a leading police official.

One person in the four-member crew died, he added.

It was not immediately clear how many people in total were on the flight.

Mr Pozela said a nearby house was "slightly damaged" and infrastructure near it caught on fire, but all residents were safely evacuated.

Both the Lithuanian authorities and DHL have started separate investigations into what happened.

The head of police, Arunas Paulauskas, told a news conference that the reason for the crash was "most likely either a technical accident or it could be a human error" but that all possible causes would be investigated.

"In the recording of the conversation between the pilots and the [air traffic control] tower, the pilots, until the very last second did not tell the tower of any extraordinary event," Marius Baranauskas, head of the Lithuanian National Aviation Authority, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.

Authorities said they do not have any data at the moment that suggests there was an explosion before the crash.

The plane was a Boeing 737-400, an airport spokesperson said.

Reported weather before the crash was a temperature of 0C (32F), with clouds before sunrise and winds around 30 km/h (19mph), the Associated Press reported.

The aircraft was 31 years old, AP added.