On 22 January, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office released a preliminary report with the initial technical findings concerning the 23 December plane crash that killed Libyan Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Mohamed al-Haddad, four members of his entourage, and three crew members near Haymana south of Ankara.
According to the preliminary report, the Dassault Falcon 50 aircraft (tail number 9H-DFS) had recently passed inspection, with its last maintenance completed between 1 and 9 December 2025—i.e. just two weeks before the crash. Prior to its use another maintenance release certificate was issued by Harmony Jets, the private jet’s operating company.
On the night of the accident, the plane departed from Esenboğa Airport, just north of Ankara, at 20:17 local time. Just sixteen minutes into the flight, the crew declared an emergency due to a technical electrical failure and requested an immediate descent for an emergency landing. Prior to this being arranged, communication was lost, and the aircraft vanished from radar screens at 20:36. The investigation reveals a high-speed impact. The plane struck a hill at an altitude of 1,252 meters, while its engines were still fully operational.
According to the report, ‘because the rocky terrain could not absorb the massive kinetic energy of the high-speed collision, the aircraft exploded on impact, scattering small pieces of wreckage over a vast area of 150,000 square meters’. Particularly noteworthy is the finding that: although, a flash was observed at the moment of the crash, the report clarified that there were no signs of a fire breaking out inside the aircraft prior to the impact.