A Boeing 737-400SF Special Freighter operated by SwiftAir on behalf of DHL Airline crashed while on approach to Vilnius Airport in the early hours of monday november 25, killing one person aboard the aircraft.
The aircraft, operating as DHL flight QY5960 had departed Leipzig/Halle airport’s DHL hub at approximately 3 am local time using the callsign BCS / Postman 18D. After take-off from Leipzig Airport’s runway 26L, this flight normally requires a little less than one hour and a half to connect Leipzig; one of DHL largest hub located in Germany, to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.
The Boeing 737-400 aircraft assigned to operate the route that day had first been put into airline service in October 1993 with manufacturing number 24445/2539. The aircraft first operated in the passenger segment, notably with Qantas, Australian Airlines and Cambodia’s Wat Phnom Airlines, according to the excellent planespotters.net database.
Then from 2014 onwards, the aircraft joined Spain’s Swiftair after having undergone a Special Freighter Conversion. In that new role, the aircraft soonafter found a permanent leasing assignment, still using its Spain-based EC-MFE registration with DHL Aviation from 2016. On short-haul routes, the 20-tons capable Boeing 737-400 freighter which is fitted with two CFM56-3C1 high bypass turbofan engines has proved a very efficient platform for overnight parcels and cargo transportation connecting various DHL western and east-European hubs.
While the circumstance of the accident remain unclear, it has been reported that at 5:28 am local time in Vilnius, the aircraft impacted the ground at a point located about 0.7 nm from the airport’s runway 19.
A short account of the accident published on the Aviation Safety Network web site explained that the aircraft’s pilot which had been cleared to descend to 2700 ft had executed a final turn at a 5.4 nm distance from the runway 19 it was attempting to land on. Citing ADS-B data displayed by Flighradar24, the short report suggested that the aircraft had in fact exited the final turn on a trajectory mis-aligned from runway 19 by about one nautical mile. This course of actions is believed to have led to the Boeing 737-400 crashing only minutes later in the Liepkalnis neighborhood.
While the aircraft crash killed a Spanish pilot, three other people aboard the aircraft along with twelve people evacuated from a nearby building which had been engulfed in flames, were unharmed.