“A safety investigation led by the Transportation Accident and Incident Investigation Division of the Ministry of Justice reaffirms that the initial analysis of data from the Boeing 737-476 flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, as well as the collection of evidence at the disaster site, did not reveal any signs of illegal interference,” the ministry said. in the statement.
Data from both “black boxes” were scanned at the Sound Recording and Avionics Laboratory of the German Federal Air Accident Investigation Bureau.
According to the information provided by the ministry, the obtained data showed several technical parameters of the flight. The cockpit voice recorder recorded crew conversations and also background sounds in the cockpit.
An international team of investigators, which includes specialists from Spain, Germany and the United States, continues to investigate the disaster.
As reported, a DHL cargo plane with a crew of four crashed on November 25 near the Vilnius airport. One of the pilots, a 48-year-old Spanish citizen, died. The other three crew members – a Spanish citizen, a German citizen and a Lithuanian citizen – were injured.
The plane slid along the ground several hundred meters to a residential building where 13 people were. The building caught fire, but all its occupants were rescued.
It is not yet clear what caused the plane to crash. The Lithuanian police have started a pre-trial investigation according to the article of the criminal code, which provides for liability if the vehicle was not in technical order. According to officials, they did not rule out the possibility that sabotage or a terrorist attack took place, however, such a version has not been confirmed.
The operator of the crashed “Boeing 737” is the Spanish airline company “Swiftair”, from which DHL had leased the plane. The plane, which had arrived from the German city of Leipzig, crashed shortly before landing at the Vilnius airport.