No evidence of sabotage so far after plane crash in Lithuania

Lithuanian investigators have so far found no evidence that the crash of a cargo plane from Germany in Vilnius could have been caused intentionally.

"Based on what we have and what we know now, there are no indications that it could have been an act of sabotage," Defence Minister Laurynas Kasciunas told journalists in parliament in Vilnius on Wednesday, Lithuanian radio reported. "Nothing can be ruled out, but at the moment I have no arguments to say otherwise."

The cargo plane crashed in a residential area shortly before the planned landing near Vilnius airport early on Monday morning. One of the four crew members was killed.

The Lithuanian authorities have launched an investigation into the crash and recovered the flight data recorder from the completely destroyed aircraft on Tuesday.

The two black boxes record flight data and the conversations in the cockpit respectively.

Investigators hope that the evaluation of the plane's flight recorders will provide important insights into the cause of the crash.

According to the authorities in Vilnius, they are to be evaluated in Germany.

The reason for this is that there is no research facility in the Baltic state that can analyse the flight data recorder and voice recorder of the Swift Air aircraft, which was on its way from the eastern German city of Leipzig to Vilnius on behalf of German logistics giant DHL when it crashed.

Earlier, the head of the National Crisis Management Centre, Vilmantas Vitkauskas told Lithuanian radio that the analysis would probably be carried out by "one of our European allies."

The head of the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice's office for the investigation of traffic accidents, Laurynas Naujokaitis, then named Germany as the country to carry out the analysis.

"We plan to send them to Germany, but we are still waiting for a response from the investigating authorities, as they are sending officials to accompany the black boxes," he told the BNS agency.

Naujokaitis noted that it should not be difficult for specialists to extract all the data from the flight recorders, as they had not suffered any major damage.

The first data could be available as early as the end of the week, he said, at the same time emphasizing that it would not be made public.

Defence Minister Kasciunas said initial analyses and interviews with surviving crew members have shown that there were no external influences on the landing aircraft.