A conversation between air traffic control and the pilots of a DHL cargo plane that crashed in the early hours of Monday morning has been published online.
The recording appears to show the pilots were not concerned about a situation on board the aircraft before the Boeing 737 freighter crashed short of the runway at Vilnius Airport, leaving one dead and three others injured.
The plane, flying from Leipzig, Germany to Vilnius, Lithuania, crashed at 5:30am local time (3:30am GMT) as it prepared to land at the hub. It is believed to have hit the ground before skidding, at least, 100 metres and colliding with a house. All residents of the house were unharmed.
“Without going into details, it is possible to say that the pilots did not declare any danger, no problems. It was a routine communication, a simple descent,” aviation expert Vidas Kaupelis told Lithuanian outlet LRT.
“The fact that the aircraft crashed a few seconds after the end of the communication shows that the pilots themselves were surprised. If they had been dealing with major problems, like a fire or technical problems, they would have communicated about it with the flight controllers.”
Lithuania’s Justice Ministry has opened a probe into the accident, as is mandatory under EU regulations, with the full investigation expected to take “at least a year,” according to the ministry’s Transport Accident and Incident Investigation Division. Although, the initial investigation is expected to “take about a week.”
“When the officers, who have already gone to talk to the surviving crew members, examine all the black boxes, it will become clear what happened inside the plane. Whether it was a technical error, pilot error, or something else,” Lithuania’s defence minister Laurynas Kaciunas told reporters.
“There are no signs or evidence suggesting this was sabotage or a terrorist act,” he added.
“We do not know what the conclusions of the investigation will be, but what is clear is that we will never panic or take decisions that are not based on facts. Let us trust the institutions and officers,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said in a statement.
In a statement, DHL said: “We can confirm that today at around 4:30 am CET an aircraft of Swift Air, a third-party carrier operating under contract for DHL, which was on its way from LEJ Airport (Leipzig, Germany) to VNO Airport (Vilnius, Lithuania), made a forced landing about one kilometer from VNO Airport. There were a total of four people on board and our thoughts are with them and their relatives. The cause of the accident is still unknown and an investigation is already underway”.
