The head of the country's police said DHL plane crashed on Monday morning shortly before landing at Vilnius airport.
"It fell a few kilometres before the airport, it just skidded for a few hundred metres, its debris somewhat caught a residential house," Police Commissioner-General Renatas Pozela said.
"Residential infrastructure around the house was on fire, and the house was slightly damaged, but we managed to evacuate people."
A DHL cargo plane flying from Leipzig, Germany, to Vilnius Airport crashed in Liepkalnis at around 5:30 a.m. City services are currently on-site, along with a fire truck and a command team from Vilnius Airport. Airport operations are not disrupted at this time.— Lithuanian Airports (@LTairports) November 25, 2024
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 posted on the social platform X that city services including a fire truck were on site.
Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24, analysed by The Associated Press, showed the aircraft made a turn to the north of the airport, lining up for landing, before crashing a little more than 1.5 kilometres short of the runway.
Authorities did not immediately offer a cause for the crash, which happened just before 5.30am.
Debris from the crashing plane "somewhat caught a residential house", police said. (AP PHOTO)
Weather at the airport was around freezing temperature, with clouds before sunrise and winds around 30km/h.
DHL Group, headquartered in Bonn, Germany, did not immediately return a call for comment.
The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor.
The carrier could not be immediately reached.
The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that's not unusual for cargo flights.
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