Türkiye held a solemn funeral ceremony on Nov. 14 for 20 military personnel who were killed in a plane crash in Georgia.
The C-130 military cargo plane was flying from the Azerbaijani city of Ganja to Türkiye when it crashed in Georgia’s Sighnaghi town, close to the border on Nov. 11. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
The victims included crew members and military personnel responsible for the maintenance and repair of Turkish F-16 jets that had flown to Azerbaijan to participate in that country’s Victory Day celebrations. 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.
Families, officials and fellow soldiers paid their respects in front of the 20 coffins, draped in the national flag, at an airbase in the capital Ankara. The deceased were later taken to their hometowns for burials.
The military has temporarily grounded its 18 remaining C-130 military planes as a precaution pending technical inspections. The cargo planes are widely used by Türkiye's armed forces for transporting personnel and handling logistical operations.
Türkiye immediately dispatched an accident investigation team to determine the cause of the crash. The plane’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice data recorder were under examination in Ankara, the Defense Ministry said.
There was no ammunition on board the aircraft when it crashed, it added.
Meanwhile, a Turkish firefighting plane crashed in Croatia on Nov. 13, killing the pilot, the forestry minister said, two days after the other deadly crash.
The accident occurred as two Turkish firefighting planes were trying to return home but lost contact with air traffic control, with one managing to land at a Croatian airport while the other crashed, İbrahim Yumaklı wrote on X.
"The wreckage of our firefighting aircraft... has been found near the Croatian town of Senj," he wrote, offering condolences to the family of "our pilot who was killed in this tragic accident."
Earlier, in a post on X, the ministry said two AT802 firefighting planes left Türkiye early on Nov. 12 for maintenance activities in Zagreb, but bad weather forced them to stay overnight at Rijeka airport in the west.
They took off for Zagreb airport at 5:38 p.m. (1638 GMT) on Nov. 13 but were forced back, it said.
"As they turned back, one of our aircraft landed at Rijeka airport, but radio contact with the other aircraft was lost at 6:25 p.m.," it said, indicating search and rescue operations were under way.
The incident came just hours after Türkiye repatriated the bodies of 20 military personnel killed in the Georgia crash.
