The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement said “a Russian firefighting plane crashed while trying to put out the fires in the Turkish state of Kahramanmaras,” noting that the crew of the Be-200 amphibious aircraft comprised 5 Russian soldiers and 3 workers from the Turkish Forestry Ministry.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the Be-200 crashed at about 15:10 Moscow time on Saturday during landing approach after extinguishing fires in the area of the city of Adana .
According to Turkish media footage, the plane with the tail number “20” crashed.
In July, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the dispatch of an amphibious aircraft Be-200 to Turkey to help extinguish fires. The message said that a Be-200 flew to Turkey is from the Russian Navy.