WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force has evacuated the crew of a U.S. Army C-17 cargo plane that took off from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport last August with people hanging on its wings during the frantic days of evacuation from Afghanistan.
Two reviews of the horrific incident, in which parts of the human body were later discovered on the plane’s wheel, concluded that the plane’s crew was “complying with the applicable rules of conduct,” Ann said. Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, said in a statement. Monday. The reviews were conducted by the Air Force Mobility Command and the United States Central Command.
It is unclear exactly how many people died in the episode of August 16, 2021, when a crowd of Afghans, desperate to escape the country after their government collapsed under the Taliban, rose to the occasion. outside the plane and crashed after the flight took off.
The video of the horrific scene, recorded by the Afghan media, circulated around the world.
“This was a tragic event and our heart goes out to the families of the deceased,” Ms. Stefanek in the statement. Pentagon officials said the traumatized members of the aircrew were subsequently sent for consultations with mental health professionals and chaplains.
Mrs. Stefanek said the crew “acted properly and exercised good judgment in their decision to fly as soon as possible in the face of an unprecedented and rapidly deteriorating security situation.”
Report from Afghanistan
During the panic at the airport in the days following the fall of the Afghan government, US pilots and troops were forced to make difficult decisions on the ground. Hours before the transport plane took off from Kabul, another C-17 had taken off with 640 people piled on board, more than double the planned number, after hundreds of Afghans who had been authorized by the State Department to the evacuation went up to the loading ramps. said military officers. The pilots decided the huge plane could withstand the load and took off, officials said. That plane landed at its destination safely.
Early the next morning, a gray Air Force plane — calls REACH885 — landed on the runway. The heavy plane was carrying equipment and supplies for U.S. Marines and soldiers who were securing Kabul airport and assisting the evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghans.
Minutes after the plane landed, stopped, and went down the back ramp, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Afghans rushed forward.
Crew members boarded the plane again and pulled down the loading ramp before they finished unloading, officials said.
Crowds of Afghans had then flown on their wings and, without the crew being able to go, to the well of the wheels on which the landing gear would fold after takeoff, officials said.
The crew contacted the air traffic control, which was operated by U.S. military personnel, and the aircraft was authorized for takeoff.
The pilots rolled slowly at first. The military Humvees rushed to his side, trying to chase the people off the plane and get off. Two Apache helicopters flew down, trying to scare some people off the plane or push them with their powerful rotor wash.
REACH885 accelerated and went into the air.
Minutes later, however, the pilot and co-pilot found that the landing gear was not fully retracted. They sent a crew member to look through a hatch.
It was then that the crew saw the remains of a still undetermined number of Afghans who had been kept in the well of the wheels, apparently crushed by the landing gear. Scenes captured in flight videos showed other people falling to their deaths.