Private Jet Carrying Head Of Libya’s Military Crashes After Take Off From Turkey

In what could be the start of a major geopolitical crisis, moments ago Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a post on X that contact was lost with the private jet which was carrying Libya’s Army Chief of ⁠Staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, and four other passengers. The Falcon-50 private jet took off from the Turkish capital of Ankara to Tripoli, Libya.

According to the interior minister, an emergency landing notification was received from the aircraft, at which point contact with the jet was lost. 

Contact was lost as of 8:52pm local time over the Turkish capital Ankara, broadcaster NTV reported on Tuesday, as flight ‍tracking data showed flights being diverted ‍away from ‍Ankara’s ⁠Esenboga airport.

As the following map from Flightradar24 show, the plane was in the air for just a few minutes after take off, having reached an altitude of 32,400 feet when it disappeared from rader.

Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reports that the country shut down airspace over Ankara after the private jet incident. 

Turkey’s ‌defense ministry had ⁠announced ‍the Libyan chief of staff’s ⁠visit to Ankara earlier this ‌week, saying he had met his Turkish counterpart and other ‍military commanders.

Bloomberg reports that the Dassault Falcon 50 was 37 years old and was operated by Harmony Jets, according to data from FlightRadar24. The aircraft had recently flown into Ankara from Tripoli on Dec. 22.

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