Libya’s chief of army staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, was killed on Tuesday when a military jet crashed shortly after departing from Türkiye’s capital, Ankara. Four other people on board the aircraft also lost their lives, Libyan and Turkish officials confirmed, marking a major loss for Libya’s western-based military leadership.
Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah expressed deep sorrow over the incident, calling it a “tragic and painful” event. In a statement, he said Al-Haddad’s death was “a great loss for the nation, the military institution, and all the people,” noting that the crash occurred as the delegation was returning from an official visit to Ankara.
According to Dbeibah, those killed alongside Al-Haddad included 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. The delegation had been in Türkiye for high-level military meetings aimed at strengthening defence cooperation.
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the Dassault Falcon 50 jet took off from Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport at 1710 GMT, bound for Tripoli. Radio contact with the aircraft was lost at 1752 GMT. Authorities later located the wreckage near Kesikkavak village in Ankara’s Haymana district. Yerlikaya said the plane had requested an emergency landing while flying over the area, but contact could not be re-established.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunç said a formal investigation had been launched to determine the circumstances surrounding the accident, with aviation and judicial authorities involved in the probe.
Libya’s political context added weight to the tragedy. The country has remained deeply divided since 2014, effectively split between two rival administrations. The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU), led by Dbeibah, governs the west, while the east is controlled by the Libyan Armed Forces under Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
The GNU said Dbeibah had instructed the defence minister to dispatch an official delegation to Ankara to follow developments related to the crash and cooperate with Turkish authorities. Walid Ellafi, Libya’s state minister for political affairs and communication, said it was unclear when a final crash report would be issued.
Ellafi added that the aircraft involved was a leased jet registered in Malta, and that Libyan officials currently lacked detailed information about its ownership and technical history. He said these aspects would be thoroughly examined as part of the investigation.
Türkiye’s defence ministry had earlier announced Al-Haddad’s visit, confirming that he met with Turkish Defence Minister Yaşar Güler, Chief of General Staff Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu, and other senior Turkish military commanders. The fatal crash has cast a shadow over Libya-Türkiye defence ties and plunged Libya’s western leadership into mourning.
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