In a private jet crash on Friday, relatives of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden died.
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Before official confirmation of the identities of the victims, the Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf al Saud offered condolences on the embassy’s official Twitter account.
The jet, inbound from Milan, crashed near Blackbushe Airport, Yateley, on Friday killing the pilot and all three passengers.
The four indicators, which can be seen from more than half a mile away, all flash white if the pilot is coming in too high and red if too low.
Eyewitnesses have said the plane’s engines were “screaming” as it approached the runway and that it “went up in a ball of flames in about 60 seconds”.
The bin Laden’s own a large construction company in Saudi Arabia and dissociated from Osama long before his reported death at the hands of US Special Forces in May 2011 during an operation in Pakistan.
Simon Moores said a plane of that calibre (a Embraer Phenom 300 worth £7 million) would be equipped with top of the range safety functions which should have worked to prevent the crash. He said the embassy was working with British authorities to investigate the incident and organise the speedy transfer of the bodies for burial in the kingdom.
The tragedy on Friday is the third fatal plane crash involving members of the vast and wealthy bin Laden clan.
The plane’s Jordanian pilot was the other person on board, al-Arabiya said.
Robert Belcher, a local plane enthusiast who witnessed the aftermath of the crash, said the jet had been a “regular visitor” to the airport in recent months.
Mohammed bin Laden died in a aircraft crash in Saudi Arabia in 1967.
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Hampshire police are reportedly carrying out a joint investigation with the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). Among those killed were three members of bin Laden’s family, described as the mother, sister and brother-in-law of the plane’s owner, Hampshire police said. Given all that, the aviation community agrees that an amateur could easily land the airplane, and bin Laden’s family pilot certainly was an experienced professional.
