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A Turkish military cargo aircraft arrived in Ankara on Thursday evening carrying the remains of 20 service members killed when their C-130 transport plane crashed near the Georgia-Azerbaijan border two days earlier, marking one of the deadliest aviation incidents for Türkiye's armed forces in recent years.
The A400M military cargo plane departed Tbilisi International Airport at approximately 7:30 p.m. local time and landed in the Turkish capital roughly an hour later, according to statements from Türkiye's Ministry of National Defense. The bodies will be honored in a ceremony before being sent to their final resting places.
The fallen soldiers were aboard a C-130E cargo aircraft that went down on November 11 in a mountainous region near Signagi Municipality in Georgia's Kakheti region, approximately five kilometers from the Azerbaijan border. Search and rescue teams from Georgia and Azerbaijan worked alongside Turkish personnel to recover all 20 bodies from the wreckage.
Ministry officials confirmed that both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice data recorder—commonly known as black boxes—have been retrieved from the crash site and are now under examination in Ankara. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
"Right now it is too early to say anything about this," the ministry stated in response to questions about the cause. "The reason for the incident will become clear after the detailed examination by the accident investigation team."
The aircraft had departed from Kayseri at 9:02 a.m. on November 11 and landed safely in Ganja, Azerbaijan at 11:06 a.m. to transport personnel and equipment. It took off again at 1:15 p.m. with a 20-person crew, including a 10-member maintenance team that had been supporting F-16 fighter jets participating in Victory Day events in Azerbaijan. The plane was bound for Merzifon's 5th Main Jet Base Command.
Last radio contact occurred at 1:50 p.m. with Tbilisi Air Traffic Control, after which both radio and radar contact were lost. At 2:34 p.m., authorities received confirmation that the aircraft had crashed in the border region for reasons still unknown.
In response to the incident, the Ministry of National Defense announced it has suspended all C-130 flights as a precautionary measure effective November 12. The aircraft will resume operations only after comprehensive technical inspections and controls are completed.
The crashed plane was purchased from Saudi Arabia on January 21, 2012, underwent maintenance, and was added to Türkiye's inventory in 2014. Following modernization through the Erciyes Avionics program, it entered active service in 2022 and had been maintained regularly since then, with its most recent inspection conducted between September 11 and October 12, 2025.
Ministry officials pushed back against characterizations of the aircraft as outdated or poorly maintained. "There is no such thing as an old aircraft, there are unmaintained aircraft," the statement read. The C-130 platform remains in active use by more than 70 countries worldwide.
Officials clarified that the aircraft was carrying personnel and aircraft maintenance materials but no ammunition, addressing speculation about the cargo.
The defense ministry sharply criticized social media users who shared identifying information about the victims before official notifications were made to families, announcing that criminal complaints have been filed against those accounts.
In its statement, the ministry emphasized its standard protocol of using specialized teams including medical personnel to simultaneously inform family members once remains are recovered. "No mother or father should learn about their child's martyrdom, no spouse about their partner's, no child about their mother's or father's through social media or television," the ministry stated.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had announced on Tuesday that 19 bodies had been recovered, saying "our search efforts for the last remains continue." The ministry confirmed later that day that the final victim had been located.
The ministry expressed gratitude to Georgian and Azerbaijani authorities for their rapid response and mobilization of resources during the search and rescue operation. Georgian rescue teams reached the wreckage at 3:02 p.m. on November 11, with the site secured by 5 p.m. to allow Turkish accident investigation teams to begin their work.
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