A military aircraft has crashed because the crew refused to carry out bombing orders, CNN said.

An opposition figure told CNN the pilot had been ordered to bomb oil fields southwest of Benghazi but refused and instead ejected from the plane.

Quoting the Libyan newspaper Quryna, CNN said the two people on board parachuted out, allowing the plane to crash into an uninhabited area west of Ajdabiya, 160 kilometers southwest of Benghazi.

Two Libyan military aircraft arrived in Malta on Monday, after their pilots defected.