Flight attendant Maria Pappa, from Rhodes, is among the victims of the aviation tragedy that occurred last night near Ankara.

None of the members of the five-member Libyan delegation, headed by the country’s Chief of the General Staff, General Mohamed Ali Al-Haddad, nor the three-member crew survived.

Maria Pappa’s name appears on the list of passengers; however, she has not yet been officially identified, and there has been no corresponding official briefing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Nevertheless, Maria Pappa’s family, friends, and colleagues are already bidding her farewell through social media.

For the people of Olympic Airways, Maria Pappa was one of those individuals who grew professionally in airport corridors, with discipline and a love for flying, and who managed to earn appreciation and respect.

She took her first steps at the airport working in the security sector. It was a demanding beginning, which, as her colleagues tell protothema.gr, gave her solid foundations. Shortly thereafter, she applied to Olympic Airways, successfully completed the procedures, and put on the flight attendant’s uniform.

Maria belonged to the younger generation of flight crews. She did not live to—or did not need to—face forced retirement, as happened to dozens of her colleagues during the years of the dismantling of Olympic Airways.

Instead, she joined public sector services. Despite the difficulties, she did not abandon the field of air transport.

She continued to fly, to work, and to develop professionally. She was low-key in character: “Always kind, always gentle, always correct in cooperation,” say colleagues who knew her both at Olympic Airways and later. A professional who earned respect through her conduct.

Her death in the aircraft crash in Turkey has left deep sorrow behind—among airport corridors, flight crews, and the people who shared shifts, flights, and lives.

The causes of the tragedy sought in the black box

The Turkish authorities are examining the cockpit voice recorder and the black box of the Falcon 50 aircraft that crashed last night south of Ankara.

Turkey’s Minister of the Interior, Ali Yerlikaya, announced that search and rescue teams located the cockpit voice recorder at 02:45 local time (01:45 Greece) and shortly afterward, at 03:20, the black box, both of which were sent to the competent services for investigation.

On board the aircraft that crashed were a five-member high-ranking military mission from Libya and three crew members, all of whom were killed.

According to a statement by the head of the UN-recognized government of Tripoli, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, in addition to the Chief of the General Staff, those on board included: the Commander of the Land Forces, Lieutenant General Alfitori Jribil; the Director of the Military Equipment Production Authority, Brigadier General Mahmoud al-Koutawi; the advisor to the Chief of the General Staff, Professor Mohamed al-Assawi Diab; and the Press Office photographer, Mohamed Omar Ahmed Mahjoub.

According to Turkey’s Minister of the Interior, “last night at 20:10, the aircraft that took off from Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport bound for Tripoli—a Falcon 50 carrying Libya’s Chief of the General Staff, General Mohamed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, and the Commander of the Land Forces, Major General Alfitori Jribil, along with five members of the Libyan delegation and three crew members—announced at 20:32 that it would return due to a technical malfunction. At 20:52, communication with the aircraft was lost in the area of the Haymana district,” southwest of Ankara.

Gendarmerie units rushed to the scene and at 22:00 local time (21:00 Greece) located the wreckage of the aircraft, which was scattered over an area of approximately three square kilometers, according to Yerlikaya.

From the Libyan side, a team of 22 people, five of whom are relatives of the victims, traveled to Turkey to monitor the investigation on site.

Information indicates that the aircraft had been chartered from a company based in Malta.

The leadership of the Libyan armed forces was in Ankara for a same-day visit, during which they met with the Chief of the Turkish General Staff, General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu, and the Minister of Defense, Yaşar Güler.