DHL cargo plane crashes into a house near Lithuania airport, killing 1

A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, killing one person on board and injuring three passengers, authorities in the Baltic nation said Monday.

The plane was traveling from the German city of Leipzig, but around 5:30 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. ET Sunday) it crashed on Pea Street, an arterial road running through the city, less than a mile short of its destination airport.

“According to preliminary data, a cargo aircraft carrying 4 people crashed near the Vilnius International airport at 5.30 AM local time. 1 person was declared dead, 3 injured,” Lithuania’s national police force told NBC News in an emailed statement.

The Department of Fire Protection and Rescue said in a statement: “It turned out that a cargo plane had crashed and a residential house caught fire. According to initial data, firefighters rescued three victims from the wreckage of the plane and extracted one dead person.”

An investigation has been launched in the cause of the crash.

A spokesperson for the government’s National Crisis Management Center confirmed that the residents of the house survived, Reuters reported. Police said at a new conference that 12 people were evacuated from the house.

The Republic Vilnius University Hospital told Lithuanian national broadcaster LRT that it was treating two people injured in the crash but would not confirm their condition.

Vilnius Airport confirmed the crash in a statement and said special services and rescue teams were working at the scene.

A spokesperson for DHL confirmed that the plane, which was operated by Swift Air on behalf of DHL, made a “forced landing” just before it was due to land in Vilnius.

“There were a total of four people on board and our thoughts are with them and their relatives. The cause of the accident is still unknown and an investigation is already underway,” the statement said. 

While the investigation begins into the crash, speculation will turn to whether it could have been an act of sabotage.

Earlier this month Western security officials blamed Russian agents for sending two incendiary devices to DHL hubs in Germany and the United Kingdom as part of a wider plot to start fires on board planes bound for America.

In July, a package exploded at a DHL depot in Leipzig and another burst into flames at a DHL depot in Birmingham, England.

Police in Poland arrested four people in connection with the plot.

Poland’s national prosecutor’s office said the saboteurs’ goal was “to test the transfer channel for such parcels, which were ultimately to be sent to the United States of America and Canada.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed these reports as “vague misinformation” earlier this month and said they were not supported by evidence.