Ankara, Nov 12: All 20 personnel on board a military cargo plane that crashed in Georgia were killed, Turkiye’s defence minister announced on Wednesday.
The C-130 plane had taken off from Ganja, Azerbaijan and was on its way back to Turkiye when it crashed on Tuesday in Georgia’s Sighnaghi municipality, close to the Azerbaijani border. The cause of the crash is being investigated.
A Turkish accident investigation team reached the crash site early on Wednesday and was inspecting the wreckage of the plane, in coordination with the Georgian authorities, the National Defence Ministry said.
The wreckage was spread across a plain that includes farmland and is surrounded by hills, Turkish private broadcaster NTV reported from the site. Debris from the aircraft was scattered across multiple locations, the report said.
“Our heroic comrades-in-arms were martyred on November 11, 2025, when our C-130 military cargo plane, which had taken off from Azerbaijan en route to our country, crashed near the Georgia-Azerbaijan border,” Defence Minister Yasar Guler said in a message posted on X, together with photographs of the military personnel who were killed.
On Tuesday, Turkiye’s state-run Anadolu Agency quoted the Georgian aviation authority as saying that contact with the plane was lost a few minutes after it had entered Georgia’s airspace. The plane had not issued a distress signal, it said.
C-130 military cargo planes are widely used by Turkiye’s armed forces for transporting personnel and handling logistical operations.
Turkiye and Azerbaijan maintain close military cooperation.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other Turkish officials had attended Azerbaijan’s Victory Day celebrations in Baku on Nov. 8, marking Azerbaijan’s military success over Armenia in the 2020 control of Karabakh region, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, a conflict that had lasted nearly four decades.
It was not immediately clear if the military personnel on the cargo had attended the ceremonies.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Georgian Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili extended their condolences to their Turkish counterparts over Tuesday’s crash.
“We are deeply shocked by the news of the loss of life of our soldiers in the accident that occurred on Georgian soil,” Aliyev said in a message, according to the Anadolu Agency.
US Ambassador to Turkiye Tom Barrack offered his condolences and affirmed Washington’s solidarity with Ankara. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also extended his sympathies, honoured the military personnel who were killed, and thanked all NATO personnel for their service.
There was no information on funeral arrangements or when the remains would be returned to Turkiye. (AP)
