The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from the aircraft that crashed near Haymana, Ankara, in late 2025 had been decoded, but it provides information that clashes with the prosecutor’s file and the Interior Ministry’s statement on the lethal crash.
On the other hand, no data could be retrieved from the severely damaged flight data recorder (FDR), Transportation Minister Abdülkadir Uraloğlu said.
The crash killed Libyan Chief of Staff Muhammad Ali Ahmed Al Haddad, four high-ranking commanders, and the three flight crew.
The three-engine Dassault Falcon 50 aircraft took off from Ankara Esenboğa Airport at 8:17 p.m., on Dec. 23. According to the audio recordings, the flight crew reported that the second generator failed two minutes after takeoff, the third generator failed 14 seconds later, and shortly thereafter all generators failed.
Although the crew reported that the electrical system had been restored a few minutes later, the pilot reported an emergency to air traffic control at 8:33 due to an electrical failure and requested to return to Esenboğa. During this process, the pilot used the PAN-PAN call, which is one level below the highest-level emergency call, MAYDAY.
WHY DO STATEMENTS CONFLICT?
The last communication between the pilot and the control tower was established at the 27th minute of the flight and the plane crashed at the 37th minute, Minister Uraloğlu told Anadolu Agency on Feb.4. But the preliminary investigation report released by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on Jan. 22 had said that the plane disappeared from radar screens at 8:36, or 19 minutes after takeoff, and that contact could not be reestablished.
According to another contradictory explanation, on the evening of the crash the Interior Ministry’s press release had said that the plane had taken off at 8:10 and contact was lost at 8:52 which indicates the total flight duration was 42 minutes.
Uraloğlu said that the CVR examination had been completed and all information had been retrieved, but that the FDR was a very old model and had sustained severe damage, making it impossible to retrieve any information: “If the pilot had turned back immediately upon detecting the generator malfunction, the accident could have been prevented.”
Data in severely damaged FDRs can only be recovered in Russia, the U.K., France, and the U.S., and the FDR from the crashed aircraft was sent to the U.K. following consultations between Turkey and Libya. If new data is obtained during this work, it will be added to the prosecution's investigation file.
