Radio contact was lost with a jet carrying Libya’s army chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, shortly after takeoff from the Turkish capital Ankara en route to Tripoli, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Tuesday.
Yerlikaya said on social media platform X that the jet had taken off at 5.10pm and radio contact was lost 42 minutes. He said the flight had made a request for an emergency landing while over the Haymana district of Ankara, but that no contact was established after.
Four others were on the jet, he added, while flight tracking data showed other flights being diverted away from Ankara’s Esenboga Airport.
Turkey’s defence ministry had announced the Libyan chief of staff’s visit earlier, saying he had met with Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler and Turkish counterpart Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, along with other Turkish military commanders.
While officials did not say whether the plane had crashed, footage on Turkish broadcasters showed a flash of light where the jet was said to have lost radio contact.
There was no immediate comment from Libyan officials.
