A Turkish military cargo plane traveling from Azerbaijan to Turkey crashed today in eastern Georgia with 20 passengers and crew on board, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.
"Search and rescue operations have been launched in coordination with the Azerbaijani and Georgian authorities," the ministry said, specifying that there were 20 soldiers and crew members on board the plane.
The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that an investigation has been opened and that more detailed information about the plane crash, the cause of which is still unknown, will be released soon.
The ministry said the crash occurred in the Signagi region of eastern Georgia, about five kilometers from the border.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev expressed his condolences to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkish authorities have asked the media not to publish images of the crash, as videos purporting to show the moment of the crash have begun circulating on social media.
According to the Georgian Air Navigation Service, the plane disappeared from radar a few minutes after entering Georgian airspace, without transmitting a distress signal.
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