Overview
- The Turkish Defense Ministry said the C-130E was carrying 20 military personnel who all died in the crash.
- The aircraft, operating as flight TUAF543 with tail number 68-1609, departed Ganja at 10:19 UTC and its last ADS‑B signal was logged at 10:49 UTC, according to Flightradar24.
- Georgia’s Interior Ministry reported the crash in the Sighnaghi region, roughly five kilometers after the plane crossed the Azerbaijan–Georgia border.
- Search and rescue operations were coordinated with Georgia and Azerbaijan; Georgian teams reached the wreckage at 17:00 local time and secured the site for Turkish accident investigators.
- Officials have not identified a cause; widely circulated footage shows the plane descending in a spiral trailing white smoke, and authorities say the inquiry is underway with no distress call reported.