Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah confirmed that General Mohammad Ali al-Haddad and four of his associates were killed on Tuesday. In a statement on Facebook, he called it “a great loss” for Libya.
The plane lost contact with air traffic control at 6:52 p.m., Swedish time, shortly after taking off from Ankara Esenboga Airport to fly to the Libyan capital Tripoli.
Other passengers included the commander of Libya's ground forces, an advisor to the army chief, a military photographer and another high-ranking military officer. The crew consisted of three people.
Technical problem
A distress call was made when the plane was over Haymana, just over seventy kilometers south of Ankara, but air traffic control was unable to reestablish contact, writes Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya on X.
Several Turkish television channels show images of an explosion from the area where the plane was when the distress call was made.
All contact with the aircraft was lost about half an hour after takeoff from Ankara airport due to a technical problem, Libyan Communications Minister Walid Ellafi told Libyan television.
We are awaiting the conclusions of the Turkish investigation.
Army Chief Mohammad Ali al-Haddad had been visiting Turkey for meetings with his Turkish counterpart Selcuk Bayraktaroglu and Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Güler.
Divided country
More or less chaos has reigned in Libya since the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The country was divided in 2014 between a government in Tripoli in the west and a power center in Tobruk in the east under warlord Khalifa Haftar. A peace process was launched with the support of the UN in 2020.
Turkey has close ties with the UN-backed government in Tripoli and provides both military and economic support.
