Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda is hopeful that the cause of Monday’s DHL cargo plane crash in Vilnius will be fully uncovered.
“Many things, which I’d prefer not to discuss in detail here, suggest that the cause of this crash will be fully determined,” Nausėda told the Žinių Radijas radio on Tuesday.
According to the president, the investigation will be aided by the black boxes and the testimony of the surviving crew members.
The DHL cargo plane crashed near Vilnius Airport on Monday morning. The pilot, a Spanish national, was killed, and three other crew members, including another Spaniard, a German, and a Lithuanian, were injured.
While authorities have not ruled out the possibility of sabotage, Nausėda said he sees efforts “both to escalate and downplay this factor”.
“I think it’s simply irresponsible to act this way at the moment because the information we have is too limited,” he said.
The president added, however, that the possibility of sabotage cannot be ruled out.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday that the crash of the cargo plane in Lithuania could have been an accident or a “hybrid incident” involving outside actors.
According to Nausėda, Baerbock’s comments reflect public expectations.
“This topic is being actively covered in the German media, and [...] the likelihood of incendiary materials has been a hot topic in the German media in recent months,” the president said.
“The public is electrified. These are completely new phenomena for the public, causing a lot of concern, and German politicians are apparently responding to these public expectations with their rhetoric,” he added.
Earlier this year, two self-igniting mechanisms shipped from Lithuania via DHL caused fires in a logistics centre in Germany’s Leipzig.
DHL said the company has no knowledge of any suspicious cargo on board the plane that crashed in Vilnius on Monday.
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