Libya’s internationally recognized prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, said on Sunday that Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, the chief of staff of the government’s army, was killed in an airplane accident a day earlier.
According to him, four other people were also on board the aircraft, which had taken off from Ankara, the Turkish capital.
Ali Yerlikaya, Turkey’s interior minister, said on the social media platform X that the plane departed Ankara for Tripoli at 8:10 p.m. local time and that radio contact was lost at 8:52 p.m.
Turkish authorities later located the wreckage of the aircraft on the outskirts of Ankara, he said. The cause of the crash has not yet been determined.
Yilmaz Tunc, Turkey’s justice minister, said that an investigation into the incident was underway.
In a statement, Libya’s internationally recognized government said that the prime minister had ordered the dispatch of an official delegation to Ankara to follow up on the matter.
During his visit to Turkey, Mr. al-Haddad had met with Yasar Guler, Turkey’s defense minister, and Bayraktaroglu, the chief of the Turkish General Staff.
Libya has remained unstable since the overthrow of Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011 and is now divided between two rival authorities: the United Nations–recognized Government of National Unity and the Libyan National Army.
The former controls much of western Libya, while the latter holds sway over the eastern and southern parts of the country, including key oil fields.
