Türkiye decodes black boxes from plane carrying Libyan delegation
Photo: Mohamed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad and Yasar Guler (msb.gov.tr)
Specialists have begun decoding the flight recorders recovered at the site of a plane crash in Türkiye. Eight people were killed, including the head of the Armed Forces of western Libya, according to Associated Press.
Türkiye’s Ministry of Defense said the investigation is being conducted in close coordination with the Libyan side.
The private jet, carrying General Mohamed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, four other senior military officers, and three crew members, crashed on Tuesday, December 23, shortly after taking off from Ankara.
All passengers and crew were killed. Libyan officials have preliminarily said a technical malfunction of the aircraft caused the crash.
Al-Haddad served as commander-in-chief of forces in western Libya and was a key figure in UN-mediated negotiations aimed at unifying Libya’s divided armed forces and state institutions.
The high-level Libyan delegation was returning to Tripoli after defense consultations in Ankara, during which the two sides discussed deepening military cooperation.
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the wreckage was scattered across an area of about three square kilometers, significantly complicating search and recovery operations.
On Wednesday morning, a 22-member Libyan delegation arrived in Türkiye, including five relatives of the victims, to take part in the investigation.
As previously reported by RBC-Ukraine, the private jet carrying Libya’s chief of general staff lost contact with air traffic controllers in Türkiye on the evening of December 23. The aircraft had reported an emergency landing near the Haymana area, after which contact could not be re-established.
Notable aviation accidents
In August, a medical transport aircraft crashed in the United States.
On July 24, a passenger An-24 aircraft crashed in Russia’s Amur region with 49 people on board. The plane was flying from Khabarovsk to Tynda with a stop in Blagoveshchensk, but lost contact several kilometers before reaching the airport.
