All 20 people aboard a Turkish military cargo plane that crashed in Georgia while returning from Azerbaijan were killed, Turkish authorities said on November 12, a day after the incident.
"Our heroic comrades-in-arms were martyred on November 11, 2025, when our C-130 military cargo plane, which had taken off from Azerbaijan to return to Turkey, crashed near the Georgia-Azerbaijan border," Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said in a statement posted on X alongside 20 photographs of those who died.
The crash was earlier confirmed by the Turkish Defense Ministry and Georgia's Interior Ministry, which said it occurred about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Georgia's border with Azerbaijan.
Turkish and Georgian authorities have reportedly begun inspections at the site, in the Sighnaghi municipality of Georgia's Kakheti district.
Many world leaders, including those from Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, have all offered their condolences.
In a post on X, Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Istanbul, expressed his country's solidarity with Turkey following the crash.
Lockheed Martin, the US company that produces the widely used C-130 Hercules aircraft, extended its condolences and said it was committed to helping Turkey in any way during the investigation.
Several short videos of the plane crash -- verified by RFE/RL -- were circulating on social media, one of which shows the entire fuselage and its fragments falling to the ground in separate pieces.
With reporting from RFE/RL 's Georgian Service and Reuters
