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Turkey’s state news agency said search and recovery teams stepped up operations on Wednesday at the site of the plane crash that killed the Libyan military chief and other high-level officials, working to secure the area and locate the plane’s flight recorders after a night of heavy rain and fog.
The private jet carrying General Muhammad Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, four other officers and three crew members crashed in Turkey after taking off from the capital on Tuesday. ankaraKilled everyone on board. Libyan officials said the cause of the crash was a technical failure on the plane.
The Libyan delegation was returning Tripoli The aim is to boost military cooperation between the two countries after holding high-level defense talks in Ankara.
Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah confirmed the deaths, speaking about the incident. Facebook as a “tragic accident” and “major loss” for Libya.
Al-Haddad was the top military commander in western Libya and played a key role in the UN-brokered efforts to unify the Libyan army, which, like most of Libya’s other institutions, had become divided.
The four other officers who died in the crash were General al-Fittouri Gharbil, the head of the Libyan ground forces, Brigadier General Al-Fitouri Gharbil. General Mahmoud al-Qatawi, who headed the Military Manufacturing Authority, Mohammed al-Asawi Diab, advisor to the Chief of Staff, and Mohammed Omar Ahmed Mahjoub, a military photographer in the Chief of Staff’s office.
The identities of the three crew members were not immediately released.
Turkish officials said the Falcon 50 type business jet took off from Ankara’s Esenboga Airport at 8:30 p.m. and contact was lost about 40 minutes later. The aircraft reported an electrical failure to air traffic control and requested an emergency landing. The aircraft was flown back to Esenboga, where preparations for its landing began.
However, the plane disappeared from radar while descending for an emergency landing, Türkiye’s Presidential Communications Office said.
The debris was found near the village of Kesikkavak in the Hemana district, about 70 kilometers (about 43.5 miles) south of Ankara.
In Hemana, gendarmerie police sealed off the area where the plane crashed, while the Turkish disaster management agency, AFAD, set up a mobile coordination center, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Due to the muddy terrain, special vehicles such as tracked ambulances were deployed.
Anadolu said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya was expected to visit the site along with prosecutors appointed to lead the investigation.
Libya was also expected to send a team to Ankara to work with Turkish authorities to investigate the crash.
While in Ankara, al-Haddad met with Turkish Defense Minister Yasser Güler and other officials.
Libya plunged into chaos after a 2011 uprising in the country led to the assassination of longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi. The country became divided between rival administrations in the East and West and the support of rogue militias and foreign governments.
Türkiye is allied with the Libyan government in the west, but has also recently taken steps to improve relations with the government in the east.
Tuesday’s visit by the Libyan delegation came a day after the Turkish parliament approved extending the tenure of Turkish troops serving in Libya by two years. Turkey deployed the troops following a 2019 security and military cooperation agreement between Ankara and the Tripoli-based government.
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Reported from Abuelgasim cairo,