Brand-new Cessna Citation Latitude runs off runway and catches fire at Misrata Airport; all three crew survive
Why It MattersThe incident highlights how positioning flights with no passengers still carry full crew and hull risk, and how quickly a newly delivered aircraft can be lost to a landing-phase event under investigation.
What happened
A Cessna 680A Citation Latitude registered TC-AKF, operated by Turkish company BKN Jet, ran off the runway and caught fire while landing at Misrata International Airport in Libya on 14 September. The aircraft was operating positioning flight BKI60 from Istanbul Atatürk Airport in Turkey to Misrata, with no passengers on board.
All three crew members — a German captain, a Turkish co-pilot and a Turkish cabin crew member — survived the incident without reported injuries. The aircraft was built in 2026 and was new at the time of the accident. Preliminary reports indicate the aircraft experienced a technical problem.
Industry impact & what to watch
Runway excursions during landing remain one of the most common categories of business-jet accidents, and this case shows the risk applies regardless of an aircraft's age — a jet built in 2026 was destroyed or seriously damaged on what was a repositioning leg rather than a revenue flight. Positioning flights carry the same operational risk as passenger flights even though no fare-paying customers are exposed, which matters for how operators and insurers assess fleet risk beyond scheduled charter segments.
What happens next depends on the findings of the investigation into the technical problem cited in preliminary reports. Confirmation of the specific malfunction, and whether it relates to the aircraft's systems or to conditions at Misrata, would determine whether this is treated as an isolated event or prompts wider scrutiny of the Citation Latitude type or BKN Jet's operating procedures.
