A Dassault Falcon 50 business jet carrying Libya’s most senior military leadership crashed on the evening of 23 December 2025, killing all eight people on board, including Lieutenant General Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, Chief of Staff of the Libyan Armed Forces. The aircraft, which had departed Ankara Esenboga International Airport bound for Tripoli, disappeared from radar just 26 minutes after take-off following a rapidly developing electrical emergency that left the crew with insufficient time to return to the airport.
The sequence of events unfolded with alarming speed. At 20:10 local time, the Falcon 50 — registered 9H-DFS and operated under a Maltese registration — lifted off from Esenboga on what was expected to be a routine return flight to the Libyan capital. Sixteen minutes into the flight, at 20:26, the crew contacted air traffic control to report an electrical malfunction and requested clearance for an emergency landing. Seven minutes later, at 20:33, the aircraft transmitted a 7700 squawk — the universal transponder code signifying a general emergency — and crew members confirmed to controllers that the electrical failure was worsening. Three minutes after that, at 20:36, the aircraft disappeared from radar. Wreckage was subsequently located near Kesikkavak Village in the Haymana district, approximately 80 kilometres south-west of Ankara. There were no survivors.
Among those killed alongside General al-Haddad were General al-Fitouri Ghraibil, Commander of the Libyan Ground Forces; Brigadier General Mahmoud al-Qatawi, Head of the Military Manufacturing Authority; and several senior advisers and crew members. Al-Haddad, who was 37 years old, had served as Chief of Staff since August 2020 and had been widely credited with attempting to professionalise the Libyan military and reduce the influence of competing armed militias. His death dealt a significant blow to UN-brokered efforts to unify Libya’s fractured military institutions, and prompted the immediate appointment of General Salah Eddine al-Namrush as acting chief of staff.
Turkish authorities recovered both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder on 24 December, and four prosecutors were assigned to oversee the technical investigation. Initial findings were consistent with a catastrophic electrical failure, with officials noting that in aviation, electrical faults can cascade rapidly, disabling navigation systems, flight instruments, and ultimately the crew’s ability to maintain situational awareness. Turkish authorities publicly ruled out sabotage, though they cautioned against premature conclusions pending full analysis of the recovered recorders. Germany, initially approached to conduct the black box analysis, declined to take part; the United Kingdom was subsequently appointed to lead the technical investigation, with France’s Bureau d’Enquête et d’Analyse pour la Sécurité de l’Aviation Civile also involved given the Falcon 50’s French manufacture.
The Dassault Falcon 50 is a long-range trijet business aircraft that entered service in 1979 and has accumulated a broadly reliable safety record over decades of operation. The type’s relative age and the abruptness of the electrical emergency are expected to form central threads of the investigation, with particular attention likely to be paid to the aircraft’s maintenance history, electrical system architecture, and the crew’s decision-making during the final minutes of flight.
Key vocabulary:
- squawk 7700 – the emergency transponder code set by a pilot to alert air traffic control that the aircraft is experiencing a general emergency; controllers give priority handling to any aircraft transmitting this code
- transponder – an electronic device on an aircraft that responds to radar signals and transmits data such as the aircraft’s identity, altitude, and emergency status to air traffic controllers
- cockpit voice recorder (CVR) – a flight recorder that captures all audio in the cockpit, including crew conversations and radio communications; used by investigators to reconstruct events leading to an accident
- cascading failure – a chain reaction in which the failure of one system causes or worsens the failure of others; in aviation, an electrical cascade can disable multiple critical systems almost simultaneously
- situational awareness – a pilot’s understanding of the aircraft’s current state, position, and environment; loss of situational awareness, often caused by sudden system failures, is a significant factor in many accidents
- trijet – an aircraft powered by three engines; the Dassault Falcon 50 mounts one engine on each wing and a third at the base of the tail fin
- Bureau d’Enquête et d’Analyse (BEA) – France’s civil aviation accident investigation authority, responsible for investigating accidents involving French-manufactured aircraft regardless of where the accident occurred
CEFR Level C1 / ICAO Level 5-6