The United States National Transportation Safety Board is leading a team of board investigators that will also include Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration to travel to Lithuania to assist with Lithuania’s Ministry of Justice Transport and Accident investigation of the crash.
Lithuanian counter-intelligence chief Darius Jauniskis told reporters: “We cannot reject the possibility of terrorism … But at the moment we can’t make attributions or point fingers, because we don’t have such information.”
A senior European intelligence official added that nothing was being ruled out.
In a statement, DHL said the plane, which was arriving from Leipzig, “made a forced landing” about 1km from VNO airport and that the cause of the crash was still unknown.
Lithuanian officials meanwhile said there had been no signs of anything extraordinary from the pilots during radio contact with the aircraft.
“In the recording of the conversation between the pilots and the tower, the pilots until the very last second did not tell the tower of any extraordinary event,” said Marius Baranauskas, head of the Lithuanian National Aviation Authority.
“We need to examine the black boxes to know what was happening in the aircraft.”
Vilnius resident Kotryna Ciupailaite said the aircraft flew low over her car as she was driving to work.
“The right wing of the plane turned down before it crashed, as if it was trying to turn. There was something shiny coming out of the right side of the plane, like sparks or a flame, before it hit the ground,” said Ciupailaite.
She shared a video with Reuters shot through her vehicle’s windshield, which she said was filmed shortly after the crash, showing a big fire beyond a range of trees.
“Oh my God,” she was heard crying out in the video.
Swiftair said the plane went down in a residential area near Vilnius airport, and that it had set up a call centre to assist the relatives of those affected.
