ANKARA, Dec 24: Libya’s army chief of general staff, Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Haddad, and four others were killed on Tuesday when their business jet crashed shortly after departing Turkey’s capital, officials in Ankara and Tripoli confirmed.
The Falcon 50 aircraft went down in the Haymana district, about 74 kilometres south of Ankara, according to Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. Turkish security teams later located the wreckage in the rural area.
Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah announced the deaths in a statement on Facebook, expressing “deep sadness and great sorrow” over the loss of Haddad.
Earlier in the day, Haddad had held meetings in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart, Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, before boarding the jet for the return flight to Tripoli.
Yerlikaya said the aircraft took off from Esenboga Airport at 5:10 p.m. GMT. Contact with the plane was lost 42 minutes later. An emergency landing alert was transmitted near Haymana, but attempts to re-establish communication failed.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office has opened a formal investigation to determine the cause of the crash.
Local media reported that residents near the crash site saw a bright flash in the sky, consistent with an explosion, shortly before the aircraft’s final signal was received. Authorities have not yet released details on possible causes, pending the outcome of the investigation.