A Turkish military plane crashed violently in Georgia after taking off from Azerbaijan with 20 Turkish personnel on board, including the flight crew.
Harrowing video showed the C-130 cargo plane spiralling before hitting the ground and erupting in a plume of black smoke on Tuesday.
Search and rescue teams were working to reach the site, Turkey’s defence ministry said. The cause of the crash was unclear.
“A few minutes” after entering Georgian airspace, the aircraft “disappeared from radar without transmitting a distress signal”, the Georgian Air Navigation Service said in a statement.
Georgia’s interior ministry said the plane went down “about five kilometres from Georgia’s state border” with Azerbaijan.
The country’s Interpress news agency said the plane had crashed in Sighnaghi, a municipality in the Kakheti region in eastern Georgia, bordering Azerbaijan. It said the incident was being investigated.
The plane was returning to Turkey when it crashed, Turkey’s defence ministry confirmed.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan offered his condolences for “our martyrs” on the aircraft, without specifying details of casualties.
Local media said, without citing numbers, that there were both Turkish and Azeri personnel on board.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev expressed his condolences to Erdogan, “the families and loved ones of the deceased, and the fraternal people of Türkiye”.
The C-130 Hercules is a cargo, troop and equipment carrier aircraft. It is described as a four-engine, turboprop military transport aircraft that can make use of unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings.
More to follow
