Day after plane crash in Georgia, Turkey reveals all 20 troops were killed

Ankara: All 20 personnel on board a military cargo plane that crashed in Georgia were killed, Turkiye’s defence minister announced on Wednesday.

The C-130 plane had taken off from Ganja, Azerbaijan and was on its way back to Turkiye when it crashed on Tuesday in Georgia’s Sighnaghi municipality, close to the Azerbaijani border. The cause of the crash is being investigated.

A Turkish accident investigation team reached the crash site early on Wednesday and was inspecting the wreckage of the plane, in coordination with the Georgian authorities, the National Defence Ministry said.

The wreckage was spread across a plain that includes farmland and is surrounded by hills, Turkish private broadcaster NTV reported from the site. Debris from the aircraft was scattered across multiple locations, the report said. “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,” Defence Minister Yasar Guler said.