Tragic: Boeing 737 Crashes On Final Approach To Vilnius

A Boeing 737 crashed early this morning in Europe, while on final approach to an airport. While there are more questions than answers, let’s go over what we know as of now.

Swiftair Boeing 737-400 cargo jet has fatal crash

This incident happened today (Monday, November 25, 2024), and involves a Swiftair Boeing 737-400 with the registration code EC-MFE. The 31-year-old jet was operating a cargo service on behalf of DHL, flying from Leipzig, Germany (LEJ), to Vilnius, Lithuania (VNO).

Shortly before 5:30AM local time this morning, the aircraft was on final approach to runway 19 at Vilnius Airport, after a 586-mile flight. About four nautical miles before landing, the aircraft was cleared for an ILS approach, and the approach controller told the pilots to contact the tower frequency.

The pilots never contacted the power, and then roughly one nautical mile from the runway threshold, the jet impacted a residential building and caught fire.

While the residential building was on fire, fortunately there were no injuries on the ground. There were four crew members onboard the jet. One crew member was immediately declared dead, while the other three were taken to hospitals with injuries. It’s not known how bad those injuries are.

VASAviation has an excellent recreation of the plane’s approach, plus the air traffic control audio, where you can hear one of the pilots communicating with the approach controller.

The Aviation Herald also has a good breakdown of what happened. Below are some videos of the crash from a distance.

For those not familiar with Swiftair, it’s a carrier headquartered in Madrid, which operates passenger and cargo flights, both on a scheduled and charter basis.

Let’s see what a crash investigation reveals

Authorities are currently investigating the cause of the crash, claiming it’s most likely due to technical causes or human error, but other causes, including terrorism, can’t be ruled out.

Were the pilots just on the wrong glide path, and they descended too early, and for some reason didn’t see the runway? Did the plane stall for some reason, like a sudden shift in the center of gravity due to cargo not being properly secured?

There are a couple of things that are noteworthy here. First of all, in the second video above, you can get a pretty clear picture of the plane’s path. It seems like it was approaching really low, and then suddenly the nose pitched down, at which point the plane crashed.

Furthermore, the pilots never reported any sort of an issue to air traffic control. Instead, communication just completely stopped after they finished communicating with the approach controller, and prior to contacting the tower frequency.

Admittedly pilots are always taught to “aviate, navigate, and communicate,” in that order, so communicating is the last priority in an emergency. But still, if there was any sudden emergency, you’d think they would have transmitted a “mayday,” or something. Obviously something went very wrong around the same time that they were supposed to switch frequencies.

I think it’s worth mentioning that a few weeks ago there was talk of a Russian terror plot to take down aircraft by igniting incendiary devices. A test run had been performed out of Leipzig, at a DHL facility. That’s probably unrelated, though it’s still noteworthy, given that we’re talking about a DHL contracted flight out of Leipzig.

Bottom line

A Swiftair Boeing 737-400 operating a cargo flight on behalf of DHL crashed while on approach to Vilnius today. Around one nautical mile before the runway threshold, the plane impacted a building, and burst into flames. Air traffic control communications had been totally normal, except for the pilots suddenly losing contact while switching frequencies.

My thoughts are with the family of the crew member who lost their life, and with the survivors, that they’re able to make a full recovery.

What do you make of this Swiftair Boeing 737 accident?