The crash of the freighter aircraft outside Vilnius airport that killed one crewman on Monday 25th November may be something other than an accident.
The aircraft was being operated by Swiftair as a third-party provider for DHL Express, serving the route between the Lithuanian capital and DHL’s main hub at Leipzig. The Lithuanian authorities have said that a “technical failure” could be to blame and DHL said in a statement that the “cause of the accident is still unknown”. However, remarks by the German foreign minister implied that the German Government thought the crash could have been caused deliberately, with Annalena Baerbock commenting to journalists that “we must now seriously ask ourselves whether this was an accident or whether it was another hybrid incident”.
The crash follows a number of fires in DHL trans-shipment hubs in October which appear to have been caused by some form of incendiary device. These incidents were in facilities handling parcels in Poland, Germany and the UK. Various government officials in Poland, the US and Germany have suggested that these fires were caused by devices designed by the Russian intelligence services to evade the security systems at airports and those operated by the express companies themselves. The packages that ignited at both the German and the UK facilities are believed to have originated in Lithuania. It would appear that the package that caught fire in Germany had followed the same route between Vilnius and Leipzig as the freighter aircraft that crashed on Monday. The head of the German intelligence organisation, the BfV, described the incendiary incidents as “sabotage” which could have resulted in the crash of the aircraft carrying the package if it had ignited on-board.
It would appear that there is a strong possibility that Russia has commenced attacks on the express network in Europe. If this is the case the motivation is obviously the tension between the western states and Russia over the war in the Ukraine. The implications for express operations in Europe must be regarded as serious. It is quite conceivable that air express operations could be significantly obstructed as a consequence of such attacks. It is worth noting that Russia has greater resources to launch such attacks than any terrorist organisation and this threat may be more serious than those anticipated after the attacks in 2011.
Source: Ti Insight
Author: Thomas Cullen
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