Turkey questions series of air incidents after Libyan jet crash

Libya’s army chief of staff and seven others on board perished on Tuesday after a private jet carrying them over Turkey requested an emergency landing, citing an electrical fault.

The Dassault Falcon 50 jet, which took off from Ankara Esenboga Airport, crashed near the district of Haymana shortly after contacting aviation authorities about the malfunction.

The death of Libya's chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, and four members of his entourage shocked Turkey, as Haddad was in the country on an official visit. Earlier that day, he had been hosted by his Turkish counterpart, Selcuk Bayraktaroglu.

The crash occurred a day after Turkey's parliament passed a decision to extend the mandate for the deployment of Turkish soldiers in Libya by two more years.

Nato member Turkey has provided military and political support to Libya’s Tripoli-based, internationally recognised government for years.

In 2020, it sent military personnel there to train and support the government, and later reached a maritime demarcation accord that has been disputed by Egypt and Greece.

The crash has put many Turks on edge, coming after a series of incidents beginning with the crash of a Turkish military cargo plane in Georgia last month, which killed 20 soldiers and crew members.

Subsequently, three ships carrying Russian cargo were attacked near Turkish territorial waters in November and early December. Throughout December, at least three Turkish commercial ships have been targeted in the Black Sea, reportedly by Russian "kamikaze" drones.

In addition, at least three Russian-made drones have landed in Turkey, far from the Black Sea coast, reaching areas near Ankara where sensitive Turkish defence companies are located.

Turkish nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli, a key member of the ruling coalition and head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said on Wednesday that the timing of the Libyan crash was "thought-provoking", as it came amid deepening dialogue between Turkey and Libya and coordinated efforts to defend mutual interests.

Even though there is no evidence of sabotage so far, some have raised the possibility of infiltration or electronic warfare attacks against the country by foreign actors, most prominently Russia and Israel.

A trilateral summit between Israel, Cyprus and Greece held in Jerusalem on Monday also unsettled the Turkish public, after Greek and Israeli sources described it to the media as a new front against Turkey.

Burak Dalgin, an independent Turkish MP, noted that both the summit and the parliamentary motion to extend the Turkish military presence in Libya took place on Monday.

The following day, the Libyan military chief of staff’s plane crashed in Ankara, which he suggested may not have been a coincidence.

Further reports in Turkish media have attempted to connect the privately rented plane to Greece.

A Turkish report said that Maria Pappa, the flight attendant on board the plane carrying the Libyan delegation, is a Greek citizen, citing Greek sources.

“It is also assessed that the aircraft, just before bringing the Libyan delegation to Ankara, carried another group - businesspeople or low-profile diplomats - from Athens to Tripoli, and then took al-Haddad and his team from Tripoli to Ankara,” Turkish journalist Koray Kamaci said.

However, no evidence of foul play in the crash has been made public.

And Turkish aviation experts believe the incident may have been caused simply by a technical malfunction.

Ugur Cebeci, a prominent aviation expert, told Hurriyet that a technical investigation would determine the cause. He did not completely rule out sabotage but said the evidence so far pointed elsewhere.

“In explosions usually caused by sabotage, pilots would not have time to report it,” he said.

“Therefore, it is impossible to understand and interpret this accident without analysing the plane’s two black boxes. These black boxes will likely be deciphered through collaboration with the aircraft’s manufacturer, the French company Dassault Falcon.”