Libya’s chief of staff of the armed forces, Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, has died in a plane crash in Turkey after departing the capital, Ankara, the prime minister of Libya’s internationally recognised government has confirmed.
Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said the crash occurred as the delegation was returning from an official visit to Turkey, describing the incident as a national tragedy.
“This followed a tragic and painful incident while they were returning from an official trip from the Turkish city of Ankara. This grave loss is a great loss for the nation, for the military institution, and for all the people,” Dbeibah said in a statement.
He disclosed that the commander of Libya’s ground forces, the director of the military manufacturing authority, an adviser to the chief of staff and a photographer from the chief of staff’s office were also on board the aircraft.
Turkey’s Interior Minister, Ali Yerlikaya, said the Dassault Falcon 50 jet took off from Ankara’s Esenboga Airport at 1710 GMT en route to Tripoli, but radio contact was lost at 1752 GMT. He said wreckage was later found near Kesikkavak village in Haymana district.
Yerlikaya added that the aircraft had requested an emergency landing while over Haymana, but communication could not be re-established. The cause of the crash remains unclear.
Turkey’s Justice Minister, Yilmaz Tunc, confirmed that an investigation is under way, while Libya’s Government of National Unity said the defence minister had been directed to send an official delegation to Ankara to follow developments.
Walid Ellafi, Libya’s state minister for political affairs and communication, said authorities lacked “sufficient information regarding its ownership or technical history,” noting that the jet was a leased Maltese aircraft.
The Libyan government has declared three days of national mourning.
The crash came shortly after Haddad met Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler and other senior officials, and a day after Turkey’s parliament approved a two-year extension of its military deployment mandate in Libya.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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