A Turkish investigative team begins work at the crash site in coordination with Georgian authorities.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that 19 bodies of the 20 soldiers on board a Turkish C-130 military cargo plane that crashed in Georgia had been recovered, along with the aircraft’s flight recorder.
The Turkish leader gave the update on the recovery efforts on Wednesday at a meeting of provincial heads of his governing Justice and Development (AK) Party in Ankara, the Anadolu news agency reported, hours after Turkiye’s Ministry of National Defence confirmed that all 20 soldiers on board the plane had died.
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“Ongoing work at the crash site is being closely monitored, and all necessary investigations will be done meticulously to clarify every aspect of the incident,” Erdogan said, adding that search efforts were continuing to locate the remaining victim’s body.
The ministry said a Turkish accident investigation team, in coordination with Georgian authorities, had begun inspecting the wreckage at the crash site in the Sighnaghi municipality of Georgia’s Kakheti district early on Wednesday.
The crash, Turkiye’s deadliest military incident since 2020, happened about five kilometres (3.1 miles) from the Georgia-Azerbaijan border on Tuesday after the aircraft tookoff from the Azerbaijani city of Ganja.
“Our heroic comrades-in-arms were martyred,” Defence Minister Yasar Guler said in a social media post with photographs of the soldiers in their uniforms.
Debris strewn across multiple locations
Georgia’s Sakaeronavigatsia air traffic control service said the aircraft disappeared from radar soon after entering the country’s airspace, sending no distress signal before the crash.
Footage published by Azerbaijani media appeared to show the aircraft sending up a large cloud of black smoke into the sky after it crashed, leaving debris strewn across the ground.
The wreckage was spread across a plain that includes farmland and is surrounded by hills, Turkish private broadcaster NTV reported from the crash site, with debris scattered across multiple locations.
Turkiye and Azerbaijan have strong economic and cultural ties and maintain close military cooperationwith Ankara training Azerbaijani officers and supplying weapons to Baku.
Erdogan and other Turkish officials attended Victory Day celebrations in Baku on November 8, marking Azerbaijan’s battlefield success over Armenia in the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2020.
Condolences from across the world
Reactions have flowed in from around the world in response to the crash, with leaders and governments of countries including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Egypt, Iran, Italy and Malta expressing condolences.
The United States ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack, also expressed his country’s solidarity, while NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte conveyed “deepest condolences” to Turkiye and the families of the dead.
Deepest condolences to our Ally Türkiye and the loved ones of all those lost in the tragic crash of a Turkish military plane today. We honour their service and are deeply grateful for all that the Turkish Armed Forces – and indeed all our men and women in uniform across the…
— Mark Rutte (@SecGenNATO) November 11, 2025
“We honour their service and are deeply grateful for all that the Turkish Armed Forces, and indeed all our men and women in uniform across the Alliance, do to keep us safe every day,” he said in a post on X.
US firm Lockheed Martin, the maker of the C-130 Hercules, also expressed its condolences and said it was committed to assisting the investigation.
Aircraft based in Kayseri: Report
The C-130 is a four-engine, turboprop transport aircraft that is widely used by militaries around the world to carry personnel, cargo and other equipment.
Turkish newspaper Sozcu reported that the aircraft belonged to the 12th Air Base Command in Kayseri, central Turkiye.
The cargo plane had left Kayseri on Monday, flown to Azerbaijan to pick up personnel in Ganja, and was bound for Merzifon, northern Turkiye, when the crash occurred.
The plane was manufactured in 1968 and initially served in Saudi Arabia, before being acquired by the Turkish military in 2010, the newspaper reported.
