ANKARA: The head of Libya's armed forces and four other passengers died on 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.
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 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.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said the Ankara chief prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into the incident.
Several Turkish media outlets broadcast images showing the sky lit up by an explosion not far from the location where the aircraft sent a signal.
'Technical problem'
Walid Ellafi, Libyan minister of state for communication and political affairs, told local television channel Libya al-Ahrar that the Turkish government informed his government of the incident.
"We received a call from the Turkish authorities immediately after the incident, reporting that contact with the aircraft had been lost," the minister said.
"All contact with the aircraft was lost about half an hour after takeoff from Ankara airport due to a technical problem," he said.
"We are awaiting the conclusions of the Turkish investigation, and it appears that the plane crashed."
The minister said the others on the aircraft were Haddad's advisor, Mohammed Al-Assawi, as well as Major General Al-Fitouri Ghraibil, Major General Mohammed Jumaa, and their escort, Mohammed Al-Mahjoub.
Haddad had been the army's chief of general staff since August 2020 and was appointed by then-prime minister Fayez al-Sarraj.
Libya is split between a UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Dbeibah, and Commander Khalifa Haftar's administration in the east.
The North African country has been divided since a NATO-backed revolt toppled and killed longtime leader Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
Turkey has close ties with the UN-backed government in Tripoli, to which it provides economic and military support, and there have been frequent visits between both sides.
But Ankara has recently also reached out to the rival administration in the east, with the head of Turkey's intelligence agency, Ibrahim Kalin, meeting with Haftar in Benghazi in August.
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