“Our heroic comrades-in-arms were martyred on 11 November 2025 due to the crash of our C-130 military cargo aircraft, which had taken off from Azerbaijan to return to Turkey,” Defence Minister Yasar Guler said in a statement posted on his X account alongside 20 photographs of those who died.
The crash, Turkiye’s deadliest military incident since 2020, happened about 5km (3.1 miles) from the Georgian-Azerbaijani border.
Dramatic footage published by Azerbaijani media appeared to show the aircraft sending a large cloud of black smoke into the sky after it crashed, leaving debris strewn across the ground.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was “deeply saddened” by the crash and expressed his condolences.
