Turkey says all 20 onboard military plane that crashed in Georgia died

Turkey confirmed on Wednesday that all 20 people onboard a military cargo plane that crashed in eastern Georgia had died.

The C-130 Hercules aircraft had taken off from Ganja airport in western Azerbaijan on Tuesday afternoon, bound for Turkey, but went down shortly after crossing the border into Georgia, the Turkish Defence Ministry said. The passengers included the flight crew.

Defence Minister Yasar Guler described those killed as “heroic comrades-in-arms” and shared 20 photographs of the victims on his X account. “They were martyred on 11 November 2025 due to the crash of our C-130 military cargo aircraft,” he said.

Turkey has not provided an official cause for the crash. Eyewitness footage published by Azerbaijani media appeared to show the plane spinning horizontally in the air alongside debris before falling.

Georgia’s Interior Ministry confirmed the plane went down in the Sighnaghi area, about five kilometres from the Azerbaijan border. Georgian air traffic control said the aircraft disappeared from radar shortly after entering its airspace without transmitting a distress signal and that emergency services first alerted authorities to the crash.

The C-130 Hercules is a military cargo plane manufactured by Lockheed Martin in the United States.   

SR