ANKARA, Turkey — All 20 personnel on board a Turkish military cargo plane that crashed in Georgia were killed, Turkey’s defense minister announced on Wednesday.
The C-130 plane was flying from Ganja, Azerbaijan to Turkey when it crashed in Georgia’s Sighnaghi municipality, close to the Azerbaijani border, on Tuesday. The cause of the crash is being investigated.
The military personnel were part of a unit that had traveled to Azerbaijan to take part in that country’s Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. The event marked Azerbaijan’s 2020 military success over Armenia for control of the Karabakh region, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, a conflict that had lasted nearly four decades.
A 46-member Turkish accident investigation team reached the crash site and was inspecting the wreckage of the plane, in coordination with the Georgian authorities.
