Ibadan – The head of Libya’s armed forces and four other high-ranking military officials died late Tuesday when their business jet crashed shortly after taking off from Ankara, officials in Turkey’s capital and Tripoli said.
The wreckage of their Falcon 50 aircraft was located by Turkish security personnel in the Haymana district near Ankara, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. Three crew members were also killed.
Libya’s Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said on his Facebook page: “It is with deep sadness and great sorrow that we learnt of the death of the Libyan army’s chief of general staff, Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Haddad.”
Haddad earlier Tuesday held talks in Ankara with Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler, and his Turkish counterpart, Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, and was returning to Tripoli.
Yerlikaya said on X that Haddad’s jet took off from Ankara’s Esenboga airport at 1710 GMT, and “contact was lost” 42 minutes later.
The aircraft issued an emergency landing notification near Haymana — 74 kilometres (45 miles) from Ankara, but contact could not be reestablished, the minister said.
A senior Turkish official said the plane requested an emergency landing because of an electrical failure 16 minutes after it took off.
