The crash, which occurred on Tuesday minutes after take-off from Ankara, killed Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Haddad, the chief of staff of Libya's army under the UN-recognised government in Tripoli, and four of his aides.

The French source said: "Two of our nationals, crew members, died in the accident".

The source did not identify the French crew members, but said that the French foreign ministry was in contact with their families and providing them assistance.

Turkish authorities on Wednesday recovered the voice recorder and the flight data recorder (black box) from the jet, which came down in the Haymana district near Ankara.

Contact was lost with the plane 42 minutes after it took off, and it made an emergency landing notification near the spot it crashed, according to Turkish authorities.

The Dassault Falcon 50 is a French-made long-range business jet. The one that went down was chartered from a Malta-based private company, Harmony Jets, which -- according to its website -- carries out maintenance in Lyon, France.

Harmony Jets declined to give information about the nationalities or identities of the crew on its plane.

Airport Haber, a Turkish site specialised in aeronautical news, said the pilot and copilot were both French, and it noted a Greek newspaper report which said there was also a cabin flight attendant who was Greek, who had joined the company two months ago.

France's BEA agency that handles civil aviation investigations said on X that it was participating in the probe into the crash launched by Turkey.

Turkey's transport minister, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, said the flight recorders would be analysed in a "neutral" country. Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said contact had been made with Germany for that to be carried out.

The Libyan armed forces chief had been in Ankara for a meeting with his Turkish counterpart.

Turkey has close ties with the UN-backed government in Tripoli that Haddad answered to, providing it with military and economic support.

But Ankara has also recently reached out to a rival administration in Libya's east, which is run by commander Khalifa Haftar.

The North African country has been divided since a NATO-backed revolt toppled and killed longtime leader Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

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Dassault Aviation

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