Turkish firefighting plane crashes in Croatia, pilot killed: Ministry

A Turkish firefighting plane crashed in Croatia on Thursday, killing the pilot, Turkey's forestry minister said, two days after another deadly crash involving a Turkish military plane that killed 20.

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, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli wrote on X.

"The wreckage of our firefighting aircraft... has been found near the Croatian town of Senj," he wrote, referring to a town on the western coast, 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 Turkey on Wednesday morning 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 pm (1638 GMT) on Thursday 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 pm," it said, indicating search and rescue operations were under way.

The incident came just hours after Turkey repatriated the bodies of 20 military personnel who were killed on Tuesday when a Turkish military cargo plane crashed in Georgia as it was returning from Azerbaijan.

Turkish investigators are looking into the cause, suspending all flights by its C-130 cargo planes as a precautionary measure.