Lithuania has found no signs that the crash of a DHL cargo plane on Monday was caused by sabotage and believes technical problems are a more likely explanation, authorities said Wednesday.
The plane crashed while landing at Vilnius airport on Monday, killing one person on board. The German Foreign Minister later said the incident may have been an accident or a hybrid attack that occurred during “volatile times.”
“With everything we have and know, there are no signs that it could have been an act of sabotage,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told reporters on Wednesday.
A visual analysis of the crash showed that there was no external impact on the plane upon landing, while surviving crew members said there was no chaos or concern inside the plane before of the crash, nor any smoke or odor, the minister said.
Investigators are leaning toward a technical cause for the crash, said Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the country’s National Crisis Management Center.
“If we get additional data, we could change our direction, but at the moment we don’t have it,” Vitkauskas told reporters.
Vilnius airport’s systems used to guide arriving planes were functioning normally when they were tested on Tuesday, he said.
The plane did not use GPS to land and it is unlikely that any interference with those signals caused an impact, officials said.
Source: Terra
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