The DHL cargo plane smashed into a home in Lithuania on Monday with the recording revealing the moment the air-traffic control tower realizes the ill-fated flight has been lost.
Chilling final audio from doomed DHL cargo plane
The haunting final moments of a horror plane crash that killed one and injured three have emerged in audio recordings – moments before the aircraft hit the ground and exploded into flames.
The DHL cargo plane smashed into a home in Lithuania on Monday as it approached the capital city of Vilnius and ignited in flames. Moments before the horror crash, a recording revealed the very moment the air-traffic control tower came to realise the flight had gone down.
At around 5:30pm local time, an air-traffic controller is heard warning other planes not to take off following the disaster. He says: “We just got a crash of an aircraft, a Boeing 737. Cancel your start-up and go back to your stand.” The jet had only just missed a highway and crashed into a wooded area before skidding into a residential neighbourhood.
Horrifying surveillance footage also captured the moment the plane falls from the sky before hitting a building and bursting into flames.
One person, believed to be the pilot, was killed in the crash. Three other crew members were rescued and hospitalised with injuries.
The crash follows reports in recent months that mysterious explosions had occurred at DHL warehouses in Leipzig and Birmingham amid fears of a Russian covert sabotage operation intended to explode aircraft flying in the West. Bombs were disguised as massage devices filled with flammable substances instead of electronic components.
Last month, Polish prosecutors said packages with camouflaged explosives travelled by cargo companies to EU countries and Britain to “test the transfer channel for such parcels” that were ultimately meant for the US and Canada.
Officials in Lithuania meanwhile say there is no evidence of terrorism in Monday’s crash but added they would look into whether or not Russia played a role due to heavy speculation about its involvement in other cases of sabotage.
“Without a doubt, we cannot rule out the terrorism version,” said Darius Jauniškis, chief of Lithuanian intelligence.
He added: “We see Russia becoming more aggressive. But for now, we really cannot make any attributions or point fingers at anyone because there is no information about it.”