Turkey says 20 soldiers killed in military cargo plane crash in Georgia
All 20 personnel on board a military cargo plane that crashed in Georgia were killed, Turkey’s defense minister announced on Wednesday.
The C-130 plane had taken off from Azerbaijan and was on its way back to Turkey when it crashed Tuesday in Georgia’s Sighnaghi municipality, close to the Azerbaijani border.
“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,” Defense Minister Yasar Guler said on a message posted on X, together with photographs of the military personnel that were killed.
The cause of the crash is being investigated.
Video footage aired on Turkish news outlets appeared to show the aircraft spiraling down and leaving a trail of white smoke.
The ministry said there were 20 military personnel on board, including crew members. Georgian authorities reached the crash site at around 5 p.m., Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said, adding that a search and rescue operation was continuing.
The Georgian Interior Ministry said the aircraft crashed in Georgia’s Sighnaghi municipality, close to the Azerbaijani border, adding that an investigation has begun.
Turkey’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 call, it said.
Turkey’s military deployed an unmanned aerial vehicle to support the rescue operation while an accident investigation team was making preparations to leave for Georgia, private news broadcaster NTV reported.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was “deeply saddened” by the crash and expressed his condolences for the “martyrs.”
“God willing we will overcome this accident with the least amount of setbacks possible,” Erdogan said.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Georgian Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili also extended their condolences to their Turkish counterparts over the 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.
C-130 military cargo planes are widely used by Turkey’s armed forces for transporting personnel and handling logistical operations.
Turkey and Azerbaijan maintain close military cooperation.
Erdogan and other Turkish officials had attended Azerbaijan’s Victory Day celebrations in Baku on Nov. 8, marking Azerbaijan’s military success in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.
