Fatal Vilnius crash could be sabotage, German minister says

The fatal crash of a DHL cargo plane as it approached Vilnius airport could have been the result of sabotage, Germany's foreign minister has said.

- Deborah Cole

A Spanish crew member was killed and three others injured when the German plane crashed into a house near the Lithuanian capital yesterday.

Germany's foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, raised the possibility that the crash had been caused deliberately, telling reporters: "We must now seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident or whether it was another hybrid incident," alluding to the recent severing of cables in the Baltic Sea that officials have said could have been sabotage.

Germany is investigating several fires caused by incendiary devices hidden inside parcels at DHL warehouses earlier this year, the country's prosecutor general has said.

Lithuanian authorities stopped short of linking the crash with that investigation.

"So far, there are no signs or evidence suggesting this was sabotage or a terrorist act," the Lithuanian defence minister, Laurynas Kasciunas, told reporters, adding that the investigation to establish the cause could take about a week.

German officials said they would be launching their own investigation and were in "close contact with the relevant institutions here and abroad to get to the bottom of the situation as quickly as possible", a security source told the news weekly Die Zeit.