Black box from crash killing Libyan general to be sent to Germany

The black box recovered from the plane crash in Turkey that killed a Libyan general and his companions is being sent to Germany for evaluation, the Libyan Interior Ministry said on Thursday evening.

This is intended to ensure a “precise technical analysis,” the ministry said. A black box contains the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. It is typically analysed in a crash investigation.

In Germany, flight recorders are mostly analysed by the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) in Braunschweig.

On Thursday, Turkish Transport Minister Abdkulkadir Uraloğlu said on X that the black box would be analysed in a “neutral country” following preliminary investigation, but he did not name a country.

The Turkish public prosecutor’s office has also pledged to support the investigation into the crash and to provide all documents and camera recordings, according to the Libyan Interior Ministry in Tripoli.

It added that the Libyan criminal police had sent DNA samples from relatives of the victims to the Turkish authorities to confirm their identities.

The private jet took off from Ankara for Libya on Tuesday and crashed about 80 kilometres further south. All eight people on board were killed, according to Turkish authorities.

Among them was Libyan Chief of the General Staff Mohammed al-Haddad, who had been on an official visit for the Tripoli government to Turkey. Hundreds of rescuers were deployed at the crash site.

After the overthrow of long-time ruler Moamer Gaddafi in 2011, Libya was engulfed in civil war for many years.

Today, the North African country, where militias and foreign states continue to vie for power and resources, is effectively divided.

Alongside the government in Tripoli there is the rival government in the east, which is allied with the renegade General Khalifa Haftar.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan conveyed his condolences to the prime minister of the Tripoli government, Abdel Hamid Dbaiba.

Meanwhile, a provisional successor to al-Haddad was appointed in Libya.