Members of the family of deceased al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden have reportedly died in a plane crash in southern England. The Saudi embassy in London has offered condolences to the Bin Laden family.
British and Saudi media say members of Osama Bin Laden’s family were among four people who died when a private Phenom 300 jet crashed on Friday while attempting to land at Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire, southern England.
Local police said the pilot and three passengers died in the crash on a car auction site. No one on the ground was injured.
In a tweet, the Saudi ambassador “offered his condolences to the sons of the late Mohammed Bin Laden and their relations for the grave incident of the crash of the plane carrying members of the family at Blackbushe airport.”
Mohammed Bin Laden, a wealthy industry magnate who himself died in a plane crash in Saudi Arabia in 1967, was the father of Osama, the supreme leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network killed by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011.
The Bin Laden family is a prominent and numerous clan in Saudi Arabia that has wide-ranging business interests.
Saudi Arabia’s General Authoritiy of Civil Aviation said in a statement on Friday that the plane was Saudi-registered, and that it would work with British authorities to investigate the accident.
British media reports said the plane had taken off from Milan, Italy.
tj/bk (Reuters, AFP)
