Turkish authorities have released a preliminary technical report into the December crash of a Libyan military Falcon 50 near Ankara that killed eight people, including Libya’s army chief of staff. The inquiry rules out an in‑flight explosion and finds no evidence that the engines stopped before impact.
Flight-data analysis indicates the jet struck a 1,252‑metre peak in the Haimana region south of Ankara at very high speed while the airframe remained intact until impact. Investigators say the kinetic energy of that high‑speed collision caused a massive secondary explosion and fragmentation on the rocky surface; burn marks at the site were produced by the post‑impact conflagration, not by a fire inside the cockpit before the crash.
The aircraft, a Falcon 50, was carrying General Mohamed Ali Ahmed Haddad and seven others back to Libya after Haddad concluded an official visit to Turkey on 23 December 2025. Turkish authorities recovered the flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders and in early January dispatched them to Britain for advanced technical repair and data extraction; prosecutors and aviation-safety bodies are combining those forthcoming black‑box readings with other evidence to determine why the jet, reportedly reporting an "electrical fault," came down at high speed.
Beyond the immediate technical findings, the crash carries political significance. Haddad’s death removes a senior military figure from an already volatile Libyan theatre, where fragile institutions and competing armed factions remain susceptible to sudden shifts in leadership. The incident may complicate Ankara’s ties with Libyan counterparts and will be watched closely by the foreign patrons who have invested in Libya’s security balance.
For aviation safety specialists the early conclusions present a familiar but urgent puzzle: a loss of situational awareness, instrument or navigation failures consistent with an electrical problem, or crew incapacitation can all produce controlled‑flight‑into‑terrain (CFIT) scenarios even when engines are functional. The fact that the cockpit showed no signs of pre‑impact fire narrows some hypotheses but leaves open critical questions about instrument readings, crew warnings and air‑traffic control exchanges in the final minutes.
Procedurally, the investigation now hinges on forensic black‑box analysis and on reconstructing the sequence of technical alerts, pilot actions and environmental conditions. Turkish prosecutors retain jurisdictional lead and have signalled they will integrate the UK lab results to reach a final causal determination; that process could take many weeks and be subject to additional diplomatic sensitivities.
What to watch next: the UK laboratory’s extraction and the timelines it provides, any interim findings Turkish investigators release about the reported electrical fault, and the political aftermath inside Libya as rival factions and foreign backers adjust to the sudden vacancy at the top of the Libyan military hierarchy.