Libya's military chief and 7 others are killed in a plane crash after takeoff from Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A private jet carrying Libya’s military chief, four other officers and three crew members crashed on Tuesday after takeoff from Turkey's capital, Ankara, killing everyone on board. Libyan officials said the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction on the plane.

The Libyan delegation was in Ankara for high-level defense talks aimed at boosting military cooperation between the two countries, Turkish officials said.

Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah confirmed the death of Gen. Muhammad Ali Ahmad al-Haddad and the four officers, saying in a statement on Facebook that the “tragic accident" took place as the delegation was returning home. The prime minister called it a "great loss” for Libya.

Al-Hadad was the top military commander in western Libya and played a crucial role in the ongoing, U.N.-brokered efforts to unify Libya’s military, which has split, much like Libya’s institutions.

The four other officers who died in the crash were Gen. Al-Fitouri Ghraibil, the head of Libya’s ground forces, Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Al-Qatawi, who led the military manufacturing authority, Mohammed Al-Asawi Diab, advisor to the chief of staff, and Mohammed Omar Ahmed Mahjoub, a military photographer with the chief of staff’s office.

The identities of the three crew members were not immediately known.

Turkish officials said the wreckage of the Falcon 50 type business jet had been found near the village of Kesikkavak, in Haymana, a district some 70 kilometers (about 43.5 miles) south of Ankara.

Earlier on Tuesday evening, Turkey’s air traffic controllers said they lost contact with the plane, which was en route back to Libya, after takeoff from Ankara's Esenboga airport.

Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, said in a social media post that the plane took off at 8:30 p.m. and that contact was lost 40 minutes later. The plane issued an emergency landing signal near Haymana before all communication ceased, Yerlikaya said.

Burhanettin Duran, the head of Turkish presidential communications office, said the plane notified air traffic control of an electrical fault and requested an emergency landing. The aircraft was redirected back to Esenboga where preparations for its landing began.

The plane however, disappeared from the radar while descending for the emergency landing, Duran said.

Security camera footage aired on local television stations showed the night sky over Haymana suddenly lit up by what appeared to be an explosion.

While in Ankara, al-Haddad had met with Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler and other officials.

The airport in Ankara was temporarily closed and several flights were diverted to other locations. Turkey’s Justice Ministry said four prosecutors have been assigned to investigate the crash, as is common in such incidents.

According to a government statement on Facebook, Libya will send a team to Ankara to work with Turkish authorities on investigating the crash.

Libya plunged into chaos after the country's 2011 uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country split, with rival administrations based in the east and west, backed by an array of rogue militias and foreign governments.

Turkey has been allied with Libya's government in the west, but has recently taken steps to improve ties with the eastern-based government as well.

Tuesday's visit by the Libyan delegation came a day after Turkey’s parliament approved to extend the mandate of Turkish troops serving in Libya for two years. Turkey deployed troops following a 2019 security and military cooperation agreement that was reached between Ankara and the Tripoli-based government.

Abuelgasim reported from Cairo.

Turkish rescue teams search for the remains of a private jet carrying Libya's military chief and four others that crashed after taking off from Ankara, killing everyone on board, in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Efekan Akyuz)

Turkish rescue teams search for the remains of a private jet carrying Libya's military chief and four others that crashed after taking off from Ankara, killing everyone on board, in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Efekan Akyuz)

Turkish rescue teams search for the remains of a private jet carrying Libya's military chief and four others that crashed after taking off from Ankara, killing everyone on board, in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Efekan Akyuz)

In this photo released by the Turkish Defense Ministry, Turkey's Chief of General Staff Gen. Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, right, poses for a photograph with Libyan Chief of General Staff Gen. Mohamed Ali Ahmed El Haddad during their meeting in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (Turkish Defense Ministry via AP)

In this photo released by the Turkish Defense Ministry, Turkey's Chief of General Staff Gen. Selcuk Bayraktaroglu, right, poses for a photograph with Libyan Chief of General Staff Gen. Mohamed Ali Ahmed El Haddad during their meeting in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (Turkish Defense Ministry via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has directed five large-scale wind projects under construction off the East Coast to suspend their activities for at least 90 days, according to letters from the Interior Department obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, which provide new details on the government's move to pause the offshore ventures.

During the pause, the Interior Department will coordinate with project developers “to determine whether the national security threats posed by this project can be adequately mitigated,” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said in a letter to project developers. The 90-day period can be extended if necessary, the ocean management agency said.

The administration announced Monday it was suspending the offshore wind projects because of national security concerns. Its announcement did not indicate whether the pause was limited, nor did it reveal specifics about the national security concerns.

It was the latest step by the Trump administration to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful. The move angered local officials who have supported the projects and posed a new threat to offshore wind development that has faced increasing pressures since Trump took office.

The letter to the developers said the Defense Department completed a recent assessment regarding the national security implications of offshore wind projects and provided senior leadership at Interior with new classified information, “including the rapid evolution of relevant adversary technologies and the resulting direct impacts to national security from offshore wind projects.”

The potential impacts are “heightened by the projects’ sensitive location on the East Coast and the potential to cause serious, immediate and irreparable harm to our great nation,” the letter said. The letter was signed by Matthew Giacona, the acting director of BOEM and a former lobbyist for the National Ocean Industries Association.

Kirk Lippold, a national security expert and former Commander of the USS Cole, said concerns about wind turbines' possible effects on radar systems “have been known for decades.”

While Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said new classified information indicates turbines may pose a national security threat, “I want to know what’s changed?” Lippold said in an interview on Tuesday. “What threat vector has changed? Have the Chinese developed new weapons or techniques that we’re unaware of and can’t fight against?”

“To my knowledge, nothing has changed in the threat environment that would drive us to stop any offshore wind programs,” he said.

House Democrats, meanwhile, have called for an ethics investigation into Giacona's actions since taking over at the agency that manages offshore waters. Giacona's work may directly overlapped with his prior lobbying work for the ocean industries group, Democrats said.

A spokesperson for Interior said Giacona “is a highly qualified and ethically sound employee who is working tirelessly on behalf of this administration to make real change for the American people.”

Wind proponents slammed the administration's move to suspend the projects, saying it was another blow in an ongoing attack by the Trump administration against clean energy.

Democratic governors of four affected states — Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York — issued a joint statement Tuesday vowing to fight the action, which they said “lands like a lump of dirty coal for the holiday season for American workers, consumers and investors.”

Pausing active leases, including for projects that are nearly completed, “defies logic, will hurt our bid for energy independence, will drive up costs for America’s ratepayers and will make us lose thousands of good-paying jobs,” the governors said. “It also threatens grid reliability that is needed to keep the lights on.”

The statement was issued by Govs. Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Kathy Hochul of New York and Dan McKee of Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, two Democratic senators said the lease suspensions mean that congressional efforts to approve bipartisan permitting reform are “dead in the water.”

The House approved legislation last week aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects, seeking to meet growing demand for electricity. The bill would also limit judicial review as Congress seeks to enact the most significant change in decades to the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that requires federal agencies to consider a project’s possible environmental impacts before it is approved.

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said Monday that with House approval, “there was a deal to be had that would have taken politics out of permitting, made the process faster and more efficient, and streamlined grid infrastructure improvements nationwide.”

But they said any deal would have to be administered by the Trump administration, whose “reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy” destroys the trust needed for true permitting reform.

“There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law,” the senators said. Whitehouse is the top Democrat on the Senate environment panel, while Heinrich is the senior Democrat on the committee on energy and natural resources.

McDermott reported from Providence, R.I.

Wind turbine bases, generators and blades are positioned along with support ships at The Portsmouth Marine terminal at the staging area for Dominion Energy's wind turbine project Monday Dec. 22, 2025, in Portsmouth, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)