DHL plane crash in Lithuania likely due to technical issue, not sabotage, minister says

FILE PHOTO: DHL cargo plane crash site near Vilnius international airport

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) -Lithuania has found no sign that the crash on Monday of a DHL cargo plane was caused by sabotage, and believes technical issues were a more likely explanation, officials said on Wednesday.

The aircraft crashed as it came in to land at Vilnius airport on Monday, killing one person on board. Germany's foreign minister later said the incident might have been an accident or a hybrid attack during "volatile times".

"With all we have and all we know, there are no signs that it could have been an act of sabotage," Lithuanian Defence Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told reporters on Wednesday.

A visual analysis of the crash showed there was no external impact on the plane as it landed, while surviving crew members said there had been no chaos or concern inside the aircraft preceding the crash, and no smoke or smell, the minister said.

Investigators were leaning towards a technical cause for the incident, said Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the country's National Crisis Management Center.

"If we get additional data we might change our direction, but we don't have it at the moment," Vitkauskas told reporters.

Vilnius airport systems that are used to guide incoming aircraft were found to be functioning as usual when tested on Tuesday, he said.

The aircraft did not use GPS for landing, and any interference with such signals was unlikely to have had an impact, the officials said.

(Reporting Andrius Sytas, writing by Louise Breusch Rasmussen; editing by Stine Jacobsen, Terje Solsvik and Bernadette Baum)