Berlin Says DHL Crash Could Have Had Outside Involvement

Germany's foreign minister said Monday that the deadly crash of a cargo plane near the Lithuanian capital's airport could have been an accident or a "hybrid incident" with outside involvement.

"We must now seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident or whether it was another hybrid incident," Annalena Baerbock told reporters at a G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Italy, alluding to the recent severing of telecom cables in the Baltic Sea that officials have said could have been sabotage.

"We have recently seen multiple hybrid attacks in Europe, often targeting individuals and infrastructure, whether underwater or hard infrastructure," she said.

The term "hybrid" is commonly used to describe attacks that do not use conventional military tactics, such as sabotaging infrastructure or launching cyberattacks.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, European countries have often used the term to describe actions against them that they believe originate from Moscow.

Lithuanian authorities have so far stopped short of linking Monday's crash, in which one crew member on the DHL cargo jet was killed, to recent suspected cases of sabotage.

The plane, which had arrived from the German city of Leipzig, crashed about one kilometre (0.6 miles) from the Vilnius airport, hitting several buildings as it skidded several hundreds metres, according to the police and DHL.