Pentagon investigating Afghan airport deaths

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – AUGUST 17: U.S. Department of Defense Press Secretary John Kirby (R) speaks as Army Major General William Taylor (L) listens during a news briefing at the Pentagon August 17, 2021 in Arlington, Virginia. Kirby held a news briefing to discuss the current situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the capital city of Kabul. Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by ALEX WONG / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

 

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US Air Force said Tuesday it was investigating how civilians were killed as they tried to cling to an aircraft departing Kabul’s airport amid chaotic scenes sparked by the imminent seizure of the Afghan capital by the Taliban.

Investigators are reviewing footage of what appears to be at least two Afghans plummeting from an airborne C-17 transport Monday as well as videos and social media posts related to other possible casualties, spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.

She confirmed that they also looking into a body found in the wheel well of the aircraft after it landed in Qatar.

The examination “will be thorough to ensure we obtain the facts regarding this tragic incident. Our hearts go out to the families of the deceased,” Stefanek said in a statement.

Stefanek did not give the total number of people killed and injured.

Video showed hundreds of people running alongside the huge craft and clambering onto it as it rolled along a runway at Hamid Karzai International Airport.

This image distributed Courtesy of the US Air Force shows the inside of Reach 871, a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III flown from Kabul to Qatar on August 15, 2021. The plane safely evacuated some 640 Afghans from Kabul late Sunday, according to U.S. defense officials contacted by Defense One. – Tens of thousands of people have tried to flee Afghanistan to escape the hardline Islamist rule expected under the Taliban, or fearing direct retribution for siding with the US-backed government that ruled for the past two decades. Evacuation flights from Kabul’s airport restarted on Tuesday after chaos the previous day in which huge crowds mobbed the tarmac, with some people so desperate they clung to the outside of a US military plane as it prepared for take-off. (Photo by Capt. Chris Herbert / US Airforce / AFP)

Stefanek said the aircraft had landed to deliver equipment to support the evacuation of US and Afghan civilians from Afghanistan.

“Before the air crew could offload the cargo, the aircraft was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians who had breached the airport perimeter,” she said.

“Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible.

© Agence France-Presse

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