Pilots killed in Libyan military plane crash

Two pilots were killed last Tuesday when a Libyan National Army (LNA) air force SIAI-Marchetti SF.260 crashed while conducting a surveillance patrol of the Libya-Sudan border on Tuesday last week. Oscar Nkala reports.
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Led by renegade General Khalifa Haftar, the LNA is the defence force of the House of Representatives (HOR) government based in Tobruk. Libya has two other governments including the UN-recognised 'Presidency Council' which is a coalition of militias that control the capital Tripoli.

In a statement, the LNA said the SF.260 from the Al-Kufra Air Base lost contact with air traffic control while it was combing the south-eastern border following intelligence reports that armed men driving in a convoy had entered Libya from Sudan.

The air force started searching for the aircraft soon after it went off radar around 3pm on Tuesday afternoon. However, the crash debris was only found on Friday in the Hanager district, about 350km south of its home base in the city of Al-Kufra.

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