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 a property close to the crash site, police said.

Rescue services said all those who were on the flight from Leipzig, Germany, have been accounted for.

The aircraft departed from DHL's hub at Leipzig Airport just after 03:00 local time (02:00 GMT) and crashed around an hour and a half later, according to data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

Flight operations are continuing at Vilnius airport as authorities respond to the crash, Flightradar24 said on X.

Firefighters were seen tackling smoke coming from a building 1.3 km (0.8 mile) north of the airport runway, Reuters news agency reported.

The cause of the crash is unknown and Lithuanian authorities have started an investigation.

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

The head of Lithuania's firefighting and emergency services unit, Renatas Pozela, said the plane was due to land at Vilnius airport and "crashed a few kilometres away".

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

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

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 18 mph (30 km/h), the Associated Press reported.

The aircraft was 31 years old, AP added.

Source: BBC

BDST: 1345 HRS, NOV 25, 2024
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