Turkey’s Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, has announced that the black box and cockpit voice recorder from the aircraft that crashed carrying Libya’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Mohammed Al-Haddad, will be flown to Britain for specialist forensic analysis. The decision follows the discovery that both devices sustained significant damage during the impact, necessitating the expertise of UK laboratories—one of only four facilities globally capable of retrieving data from such severely compromised flight recorders.
The crash occurred on 23 December near Haymana, south of Ankara, claiming the lives of General Al-Haddad, his five-member military delegation, and the aircraft’s crew. Minister Uraloğlu emphasised that the investigation in the UK would be conducted with “total transparency,” featuring a joint team of Turkish and Libyan officials, alongside representatives from the aircraft’s manufacturing state. The collaborative oversight is intended to ensure the integrity of the findings as the international community seeks answers to the cause of the disaster.
Turkish authorities remain focused on the technical data held within the recorders to determine whether the mid-air catastrophe was triggered by mechanical failure, pilot error, or adverse weather conditions. As the wreckage recovery concludes near the capital, the final resolution of the investigation now rests with British aviation experts, whose report will be pivotal in addressing the security and safety questions surrounding the loss of Libya’s top military commander.