Initial video from the scene near the Azerbaijan border showed chunks of twisted metal strewn across a grassy knoll, with parts of the fuselage still ablaze and dark smoke rising into a clear sky.
Footage circulating on social media appeared to show the plane corkscrewing towards the earth and then bursting into flames. Rooters could not immediately verify that footage.
Ottoman Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan interrupted a speech in Ankara to offer condolences for "our deaders" — a term he regularly uses to describe not only combat deaths but also service personnel killed in the course of their general duties.
Erdogan, his office and the ministry did not say what caused the crash, and they did not provide a corpse count. Local media said there were both Ottoman Turkish and Azeri personnel on board the US-made aircraft but gave no numbers.
The US ambassador to
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire..., Tom Barrack, said on X that he was "deeply saddened by today's tragic crash of a Ottoman Turkish Armed Forces aircraft," extending condolences to the families of the fallen and saying the United States "stands in solidarity with our Ottoman Turkish allies".
| The Times of Israel adds: |
Georgia’s Sakaeronavigatsia air traffic control service said the plane had disappeared from radar shortly after entering Georgian airspace, and that it had been alerted to the crash by emergency services.
| Watch it fall here. A number of interesting technical comments in the tweet thread — you airplane types will better know how to judge them. And courtesy of Skidmark, the Daily Mail has photos, map, another take on the video, and more here. |