ANKARA/TRIPOLI, Dec. 24 — Libya’s army chief of staff, Mohammed al-Haddad, and four other officials were killed when their business jet crashed south of Ankara on Tuesday evening, Libyan and Turkish authorities confirmed.
Turkish Gendarmerie units located the wreckage of the jet, a Falcon 50, near Kesikkavak village in the Haymana district, according to Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah later confirmed the deaths in a statement. The aircraft, tail number 9H-DFJ, departed Ankara’s Esenboga Airport at 8:10 p.m. local time (1710 GMT) bound for Tripoli.
Ground control lost contact with the flight at 8:52 p.m. (1752 GMT), shortly after the crew issued an emergency landing notification near Haymana.
Türkiye’s Anadolu Agency broadcast footage appearing to show a flash from the aircraft’s impact, alongside images of debris scattered at the site.
While air traffic at Ankara was briefly suspended following the crash, operations have since returned to normal. Al-Haddad had been in the Turkish capital for high-level military talks.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Turkish defense ministry reported he had met with his Turkish counterpart Selcuk Bayraktaroglu and Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
