Search teams scour Turkish crash site after Libyan military chief killed in jet accident

Search and recovery teams on Wednesday intensified operations at the site of a private jet crash in Turkiye that killed Libya’s military chief and several other senior officers, as authorities worked to secure the area and locate the aircraft’s flight recorders amid challenging weather conditions.

According to Turkiye’s state-run Anadolu Agency, teams resumed efforts after a night of heavy rain and fog hampered initial recovery work. The aircraft, a Falcon 50-type business jet, crashed on Tuesday, killing all eight people on board.

The jet was carrying Gen. Muhammad Ali Ahmad al-Haddad, Libya’s top military commander in the western part of the country, along with four other senior officers and three crew members. Libyan officials said preliminary information pointed to a technical malfunction as the cause of the crash.

The Libyan delegation was returning to Tripoli after holding high-level defence talks in Ankara aimed at strengthening military cooperation between Libya and Turkiye.

Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah confirmed the deaths in a post on Facebook, calling the incident a “tragic accident” and a “great loss” for the country.

Al-Haddad played a central role in UN-brokered efforts to unify Libya’s military, which remains divided along the same lines as the country’s political institutions.

Victims identified

Libyan officials identified the other officers killed in the crash as:

• Gen. Al-Fitouri Ghraibil, head of Libya’s ground forces

• Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Al-Qatawi, chief of the military manufacturing authority

• Mohammed Al-Asawi Diab, adviser to the chief of staff

• Mohammed Omar Ahmed Mahjoub, military photographer attached to the chief of staff’s office

The identities of the three crew members were not immediately made public.

Crash details

Turkish authorities said the jet took off from Ankara’s Esenboga airport at around 8.30 pm. Contact with the aircraft was lost about 40 minutes later after the crew reported an electrical fault and requested an emergency landing.

Key details released by Turkish officials include:

• The aircraft was redirected back to Esenboga after declaring an emergency

• Preparations for an emergency landing were underway

• The plane disappeared from radar while descending

The wreckage was later located near Kesikkavak village in Haymana district, around 70 km south of Ankara.

Investigation underway

At the crash site, gendarmerie police sealed off the area, while Turkiye’s disaster management agency AFAD set up a mobile coordination centre. Specialised vehicles, including tracked ambulances, were deployed due to muddy terrain.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya is expected to visit the site along with prosecutors leading the investigation. Libya is also expected to send a team to Ankara to assist Turkish authorities.

While in Ankara, al-Haddad had met Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler and other senior officials. The visit came a day after Turkiye’s parliament approved a two-year extension of the mandate for Turkish troops deployed in Libya under a 2019 security and military cooperation agreement.

Libya has remained deeply divided since the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, with rival administrations in the east and west backed by various militias and foreign powers. Turkiye has been allied with the Tripoli-based government in the west, while also recently moving to improve ties with the eastern authorities.

With PTI/AP inputs