Members of Osama Bin Laden's family were among the victims in the crash of a private jet in Britain, the Saudi embassy in London said Saturday in a message of condolences.
01.08.2015
(AFP) Members of Osama Bin Laden's family were among the victims in the crash of a private jet in Britain, the Saudi embassy in London said Saturday in a message of condolences.
Four people died when the Saudi Arabia-registered plane ploughed into a car auction site and burst into flames in southern England on Friday.
Local police said the pilot and three passengers died when
the Phenom 300 jet attempted to land at Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire
and that no one was injured on the ground.
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," read a statement posted on the embassy's official Twitter account.
It did not confirm the identities of those killed.
The embassy also said it would work with British
authorities to investigate the incident and repatriate the bodies for
burial in Saudi Arabia.
Osama Bin Laden's father, Mohammed, was a construction
industry magnate and his numerous descendants constitute a prominent
family with wide-ranging business interests.
Mohammed Bin Laden himself died in a plane crash in Saudi Arabia in 1967.
His son Osama, the late supreme leader of the Al-Qaeda
militant network, was shot dead by US special forces in Pakistan in
2011.
Footage of the aftermath of Friday's crash
showed plumes of black smoke rising into the sky and several cars on
fire in the outdoor area of British Car Auctions, where vehicles were
parked awaiting sale.
Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement Friday that the plane was registered in the Gulf state, and that it would work with British investigators to determine the cause of the crash.
The BBC reported that the aircraft had taken off from Milan's Malpensa airport in Italy.