Turkey reported on Wednesday that all 20 personnel on board a military cargo jet that crashed in Georgia while returning from Azerbaijan had died.
The plane took off from Ganja airport in western Azerbaijan on Tuesday afternoon and crashed shortly after crossing into eastern Georgia, according to the defense ministry.
It stated that there were 20 passengers on board, including the aircraft crew.
“Our heroic comrades-in-arms were martyred on 11 November 2025 due to the crash of our C-130 military cargo aircraft, which had taken off from Azerbaijan to return to Turkey,” Defence Minister Yasar Guler said in a statement posted on his X account alongside 20 photographs of those who died.
Turkey has not stated what caused the accident, but spectacular footage captured by eyewitnesses and aired by Azerbaijani media appeared to show the jet spinning horizontally with many pieces of debris as it crashed.
Georgia’s interior ministry reported the plane crashed in the Sighnaghi district, “about five kilometers (3.1 miles) from Georgia’s state border” with Azerbaijan.
Georgian air traffic control said that the plane vanished from its radar shortly after entering its airspace “without transmitting a distress signal” and that emergency services had informed them of the incident.
Lockheed Martin, a US firm, produces the C-130 Hercules military transport plane.
