|
Listen to article
|
A private jet carrying the head of Libya’s armed forces requested emergency landing because of electrical failure before it crashed Tuesday, a senior Turkish official said.
“A private jet carrying Libyan Chief of General Staff Mohammed al-Haddad, four members of his entourage and three crew members reported an emergency to the air traffic control centre due to an electrical failure, asking for an emergency landing,” Burhanettin Duran, head of the presidency’s communications directorate, said on X.
All 20 personnel on board the Turkish military cargo plane en route from Azerbaijan to Turkey that crashed in Georgia on Tuesday were killed, according to the country’s defence minister Yasar Guler.
Read Also: Accept Flights, $3,000 Cash To Leave Or Risk Arrest – US To Immigrants
The C-130 plane crashed in the eastern Georgian municipality of Sighnaghi, close to the border with Azerbaijan, shortly after taking off from Ganja. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash.
A Turkish accident investigation team reached the crash site and was inspecting the wreckage of the plane, in coordination with Georgian authorities, a source at the Turkish defence ministry said.
Georgia’s Interior Minister Gela Geladze said authorities have so far recovered the remains of 18 victims, adding that efforts were continuing to locate the other two.
Geladze also said that further details in connection with the accident will be revealed “in stages.” The interior minister said due to military sensitivities and in coordination with Ankara and its demands, information in an ongoing investigation cannot be promptly released.
The wreckage of the aircraft was spread across a plain that includes farmland and is surrounded by hills. Debris was scattered across multiple locations, according to Turkish media outlets who were reporting from the site.
On Tuesday, a Turkish state-run agency quoted the Georgian aviation authority saying that contact with the plane was lost a few minutes after it entered Georgian airspace. The plane had not issued a distress signal, it said.
C-130 military cargo planes are widely used by Turkey’s armed forces for transporting personnel and handling logistical operations. Military flights between Azerbaijan and Turkey are routine, as the two countries have close ties and military cooperation.
