Lithuanian investigators have so far found no evidence that the crash of a cargo plane from Germany in Vilnius could have been deliberately caused.
“Based on what we have and what we know now, there is no indication that it could have been an act of sabotage,” Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told journalists at parliament in Vilnius on Wednesday, Lithuanian Radio reported. “Nothing can be ruled out, but at the moment I have no arguments to the contrary.”
Kasciunas said initial analysis and interviews with surviving crew members showed there were no external influences on the landing plane.
The head of the National Crisis Management Center, Vilmantas Vitkauskas, also said there was “a trend towards a more technical version of the plane crash”. He hoped to gain more insight from evaluating the flight recorders recovered from the completely destroyed plane.
The cargo plane had taken off from Leipzig early Monday morning and was on its way to Vilnius. Shortly before the scheduled landing, the plane crashed in a residential area near the airport. One of the four crew members died.
