‘Contact lost with private jet carrying Libya's chief of staff’: Turkey

Turkey said on Tuesday it lost contact with a Falcon 50-type private jet with five passengers onboard, including Libya's chief of staff, after it took off from the capital Ankara. "Contact was lost at 20:52 local time (1752 GMT) with a Falcon 50-type business jet, tail number 9H-DFJ, departing from Ankara's Esenboga airport bound for Tripoli at 20:10 local time," Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a statement posted on X.

The five passengers onboard included the Libyan chief of general staff, General Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, he added. The aircraft issued an emergency landing notification near Haymana -- 74 kilometres (45 miles) from Ankara, but contact could not be reestablished after that, the minister said.

"Authorities are monitoring the situation," he added. Several Turkish media broadcast images showing the sky lit up by an explosion not far from the supposed location where the aircraft sent a signal. Turkey has close ties with the UN-backed government in Tripoli, to which it provides economic and military support.