NN ONLINE:
Turkey’s defense minister confirmed Wednesday that all 20 military personnel aboard a Turkish cargo plane that crashed in Georgia have died. The C-130 aircraft had departed from Ganja, Azerbaijan, and was en route to Turkey when it went down Tuesday in Georgia’s Sighnaghi municipality, near the Azerbaijani border. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
A Turkish investigation team arrived at the site early Wednesday to examine the wreckage in cooperation with Georgian authorities, according to the National Defense Ministry. Footage from Turkish broadcaster NTV showed the crash debris scattered across farmland surrounded by hills. Pieces of the aircraft were found across several locations.
“Our brave comrades were martyred on November 11, 2025, when our C-130 transport aircraft, returning from Azerbaijan, crashed near the Georgia-Azerbaijan border,” Defense Minister Yasar Guler wrote on X, sharing photos of the fallen personnel.
On Tuesday, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency cited Georgia’s aviation authority as saying that radio contact with the plane was lost shortly after it entered Georgian airspace. No distress signal had been sent. The C-130 model is a key aircraft for Turkey’s military, used mainly for troop transport and logistics operations.
Turkey and Azerbaijan share strong military ties. Just days earlier, on November 8, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended Azerbaijan’s Victory Day celebrations in Baku, marking its 2020 military victory over Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It was not immediately clear whether the crew members on the crashed plane had participated in those events.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Georgian Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili expressed condolences to Turkey over the tragedy. “We are deeply saddened by the loss of our Turkish brothers in the accident on Georgian soil,” Aliyev said in a statement reported by Anadolu. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also offered condolences, honoring the victims and reaffirming solidarity with Turkey.
Details regarding funeral arrangements and the repatriation of the victims’ remains have not yet been released.
