A DHL cargo plane has crashed into a house in Lithuania killing at least one person on Monday morning.
The Boeing 737 which was travelling from Leipzig, Germany was heading to Lithuania’s capital city Vilnius when it crashed at around 5.30am local time (3.30am GMT), shortly before landing at the airport.
“It fell a few kilometers before the airport, it just skidded for a few hundred meters, its debris somewhat caught a residential house,” said Police Commissioner-General Renatas Požėla.
“Residential infrastructure around the house was on fire, and the house was slightly damaged, but we managed to evacuate people.”
Pictures online show a large explosion followed by a fireball near the airport with thick black smoke and flames seen rising above the tree line.
Lithuanian’s public broadcaster LRT, quoting an emergency official, said two people had been taken to the hospital after the crash, and one was later pronounced dead.
The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a DHL cargo plane arriving from Leipzig, Germany.
It also confirmed that all scheduled aircrafts are currently taking off from Vilnius airport.
Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24, showed the aircraft made a turn to the north of the airport, lining up for landing, before crashing a little more than 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) short of the runway.
A cause for the crash has not been given by authorities.
Weather at the airport was around freezing temperature, with clouds before sunrise and winds around 18 mph.
The 31-year-old DHL aircraft, operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor, is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that’s not unusual for cargo flights.
DHL Group and Swiftair have not comment at this time.
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