Istanbul, Turkiye – Turkish authorities and Libyan officials are conducting an investigation into the crash of a private jet that killed Libya’s army chief, Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, and seven other people near Ankara.
The probe, coordinated by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, is focusing on technical evidence, flight recordings, crew activity and aircraft maintenance, officials said. The French civil aviation investigations agency, BEA, has announced that it will participate in the probe.
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General al-Haddad had been received in Ankara on Tuesday for talks with his Turkish counterpart, Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, and Defence Minister Yasar Guler.
According to officials, the French-made Dassault Falcon 50 took off from Ankara Esenboga Airport at 2:17pm on Tuesday, heading back to Libya, reported an electrical malfunction 16 minutes later and requested an emergency return.
Radar contact was lost shortly after at 2:41 pm (17:41 GMT) while the aircraft was descending towards the runway.
Officials said there was only a two-minute window between the emergency alarm and the crash.
The probe’s many factors
The forensic examination of the bodies of General al-Haddad and his military companions was completed early on Saturday and they have been repatriated to Libya after a ceremony in their honour at an airbase outside Ankara.
The site of Tuesday’s crash – near Kesikkavak village in Haymana district, roughly 70km (43 miles) south of Ankara – has been sealed off by Turkish security forces. All wreckage, including the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, or “black boxes”, has been secured and transported for analysis, according to authorities.
As part of the prosecutor-led investigation, specialists are examining air traffic control recordings, radar data and airport security camera footage.
Authorities have also requested communication logs between the pilots and the control tower and are reviewing the crew’s rest periods, medical history and records of meals or medication taken before the flight.
Maintenance logs and documentation related to the aircraft’s most recent checks are also under scrutiny to identify any possible technical lapses.
Fuel samples have been taken from both the wreckage and airport tanks to rule out contamination or incorrect fuel use, while local weather data from the time of the crash has been requested.
If evidence points to a structural failure or design flaw, investigators said, the inquiry could be expanded to include manufacturers and maintenance contractors.
International rules and reporting timeline
Gursel Tokmakoglu, former head of the Turkish air force’s intelligence agency, said the crash should be viewed as an international case, given the number of actors involved.
“The Libyan government chartered an aircraft from a foreign country. The aircraft was manufactured in another country. The pilots were from elsewhere. The passengers were Libyan, and the crash happened in Turkiye,” he said.
“If you also consider insurance companies and international aviation bodies, this is clearly a multinational incident.”
Earlier, Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu had announced that the black boxes may be sent to another country for further analysis, raising some questions about why analysis could not be done in either Turkiye or Libya.
Tokmakoglu said Turkiye could either examine the black boxes domestically or send them abroad for further analysis.
“Transferring the recorders can help ensure greater transparency and a clearer understanding of what happened, especially in a case involving so many international stakeholders,” he said.
Tokmakoglu noted that according to preliminary findings, the aircraft transmitted the 7700 emergency “squawk” code, which indicates an emergency that requires immediate attention, and the crew reported an electrical malfunction.
However, he added, it would be premature to assume that the electrical malfunction was the cause of the aircraft’s crash.
“In aviation, an electrical failure can trigger other problems,” he said, likening such a situation to “being admitted to intensive care for heart failure but dying later from a lung infection”.
Aviation industry analyst Guntay Simsek told Al Jazeera, citing his own sources, that there are no indications so far that the crash was caused by an external factor such as an explosion, adding that the technical investigation remains ongoing.
The probe starting immediately is within general best practices after a crash, aviation industry analyst Guntay Simsek said, pointing to ICAO regulations that govern aircraft accident investigations, which require a preliminary report within 30 days and a final report within 12 months.