Twenty members of the Turkish Air Force were killed on Tuesday when their C-130 military transport aircraft crashed in Georgia shortly after taking off from Azerbaijan. The tragedy, confirmed by Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler, is being described as one of the most serious accidents involving the Turkish Armed Forces in recent years.
According to official reports, the aircraft departed from Ganja, a city in northwestern Azerbaijan, and was en route back to Turkey. Shortly after takeoff, it lost altitude and crashed near the Georgian town of Sighnaghi, approximately 50 kilometers from the Azerbaijani border. Videos shared on social media show the aircraft’s tail section spinning toward the ground before disappearing in a plume of smoke.
Data from the flight tracking platform Flightradar24 indicate that the C-130E aircraft, built in 1968, had reached a cruising altitude of around 24,000 feet before experiencing a sudden and rapid descent in its final seconds. According to available records, the aircraft was originally delivered to the Royal Saudi Air Force and entered service with the Turkish Air Force in 2010.
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya confirmed that his Georgian counterpart traveled to the crash site, while Georgia’s Interpress News agency reported that local authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the accident.
It remains unclear what specific mission the Turkish servicemen were carrying out in Azerbaijan, though the two countries have long maintained close military cooperation. The crash occurred just a week after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Baku to mark the fifth anniversary of the end of Azerbaijan’s conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Lockheed Martin, the U.S. manufacturer of the C-130 aircraft, has not yet commented on the incident.
