A Turkish military aircraft carrying 37 people crashed on Wednesday in southeastern Turkey, killing all aboard, the military and police said.
Turkey's armed forces General Staff said in a statement that the plane was heading from the southeastern city of Diyarbakir to Ankara carrying six crew members and 31 passengers, all military personnel.
It was the worst air disaster in Turkey since 1994 when 57 people died in a Turkish Airlines crash, reported CNN.
The aircraft crashed near Akcadag, several hundred miles southeast of the capital Ankara, shortly after taking off from the southern city of Malatya, sources said.
State-run Anatolian news agency reported the CASA CN-235 cargo plane was on its way to Ankara. The Spanish-designed two-engine propeller aircraft are manufactured in Turkey.
Bayram Karaaslan, the mayor of Akcadag, told CNN Turkey there were no survivors. "We can only collect corpses now," he said.
Karaaslan said the plane was in several parts and was still on fire. "It does not look like a plane," he said.
"There's a suggestion it might have exploded in the air but it's not certain," Karaaslan said. "Bits of the plane are scattered over 300-400 meters (yards)."
There has been no announcement about the cause of the crash.
Eyewitnesses told NTV television that the plane, belonging to Turkish land forces, exploded in the air and then crashed into an empty field, Reuters said.
State-run Anatolian news agency said the Casa aircraft was carrying a number of special forces personnel when it crashed – Albawaba.com
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