An explosion has rocked the Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius, sparking an enormous fire that engulfed a residential building after a DHL cargo plane ploughed into the flats
A DHL cargo plane crash landed in Vilnius today hitting a residential building and killing the pilot.
Three other crew members were rescued and hospitalised with injuries. An explosion which lit up the early morning sky in the Lithuanian capital triggered a major fire ignited at the scene.
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. Lithuanian intelligence services were at the scene of today’s crash of a Boeing 737-400 of cargo airline Swiftair which DHL leases. There was no immediate reason given about the cause of today’s crash.
The 31-year-old Boeing 737 cargo aircraft was en route from Leipzig to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. It hit a two storey residential building on Žirnių Street at around 5:30am.
A dozen residents of the house where the plane crashed are alive, and were evacuated. Fire crews from nearby Vilnius Airport arrived at the scene.
Earlier reports of sabotage of DHL warehouses said that the intention was not to target the logistics centres but rather passenger and cargo planes carrying hazardous packages.
It comes after the father of a British prisoner of war who was captured by Russia says “he had fallen in love with a Ukrainian girl” and revealed that his family begged him not to go to the frontline.
James Scott Rhys Anderson, a British mercenary fighting for Ukraine inside Russia, has been taken prisoner by Vladimir Putin’s forces. The 22-year-old former signalman was detained in the Ukrainian-occupied Kursk region of Russia, according to the Kremlin media.
In a chilling interrogation video, he said he served in the British Army for four years before being fired and applying to join Ukraine’s International Brigade as a mercenary. Now, his father Scott Anderson, 41, said he and other family members had begged his son not to go to Ukraine.
However, he said James couldn’t be dissuaded as he “thought what he was doing was right.” He also added that James has fallen in love with a girl from Ukraine that he met while in the country – and added he was due to return home for Christmas in a few weeks’ time.
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