Search and recovery operations are continuing in southern Turkey following the crash of a private jet carrying Libya’s Chief of General Staff of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Mohammed Al-Haddad, and several accompanying officials.
The aircraft went down near the municipality of Haymana, south of Ankara, while en route from the Turkish capital to Tripoli, killing all those on board.
According to reporters at the crash site, Turkish emergency and disaster-response teams are still recovering scattered aircraft debris and human remains across a wide area. Forensic teams have begun DNA testing and other identification procedures to determine the identities of the victims, as the impact caused extensive fragmentation of both the aircraft and its occupants.
Turkey’s Interior Minister confirmed that both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, the aircraft’s black box, have been recovered.
The devices are expected to be sent to France, where the aircraft was manufactured, for technical analysis and data extraction. Officials say the information contained in the recorders will be critical in establishing the sequence of events leading up to the crash.
Investigators have so far recovered only small fragments of the aircraft, with the main wreckage believed to be scattered across rugged terrain. Turkish authorities also confirmed that the flight crew consisted of foreign nationals, identifying the pilot and co-pilot as French citizens, while the flight attendant was a Cypriot-Greek national.
Libyan security teams arrived in Turkey shortly after the incident and are working alongside Turkish authorities as part of a joint investigation. Sources familiar with the inquiry indicated that the aircraft had previously been chartered by Libyan military and security officials on multiple occasions, a detail that is now being reviewed as part of the broader probe.
Families of the victims have traveled to Ankara, accompanied by Libyan officials, to receive updates and coordinate with Turkish authorities. The loss of General Al-Haddad, a senior figure in Libya’s military establishment, has triggered widespread shock and mourning across the country.
Turkish officials have pledged full transparency in the investigation and said further updates will be released once preliminary findings from the black box analysis and forensic examinations become available.
