Footage appears to show Afghans falling from plane after take-off from Kabul Airport
Afghan people climb on top of a plane as they wait at Kabul airport today. The chaotic and tragic scenes are likely to become a defining symbol of the West’s failure in Afghanistan.
Photo: Wakil Kohsar / AFP
Desperate Afghans clung to the side of a moving US military plane leaving Kabul airport today, with at least three people apparently falling to their deaths from the undercarriage immediately after take-off.
A further four people were killed during incidents elsewhere at the airport.
Video footage shows hundreds of people running alongside the plane as it trundles along the runway of Kabul international airport. A number hang on to the side of the C-17A aircraft, just below the wing. Others run alongside waving and shouting.
As it soars above the Afghan capital, several people appear to plunge from the plane, one by one. Horrified onlookers point to the sky. A second video shows the bodies of three people – two men and a woman – lying on the ground in the airport complex.
Oh my God.
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) August 16, 2021
Desperate Afghans are hanging on the plane tires and falling from the sky near the Kabul airport https://t.co/OhIscfDNWd
The chaotic and tragic scenes at the airport after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban are likely to become a defining symbol of the West’s failure in Afghanistan. They follow the evacuation by helicopter on Sunday of the US embassy, and other diplomatic missions, in images reminiscent of the 1975 fall of Saigon.
Despite Taliban reassurances that there would be no reprisals against the civilian population, thousands of Afghans today were trying to flee. The airport – secured by the US military – was the only feasible route out after the Islamist group took control of the country’s land borders.
On Sunday evening the Taliban moved into the presidential palace after Afghanistan’s elected president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country. Access to Hamid Karzai airport, three miles (5kms) from the centre of the capital, is now only possible via Taliban checkpoints.
The US, UK, Germany, Canada and a host of other coalition nations are seeking to evacuate their nationals. The southern, civilian side of the airport came under fire on Sunday, and on Monday morning there were reports US troops had fired into the air to disperse surging crowds.
Videos from the airport show people pouring into the terminal building. Thousands – including parents carrying young children – are seen surging onto the tarmac. US Humvees are also on the ground at the airport. In one video a woman calls out: “Look at the state of the people of Afghanistan.”
As day broke in Afghanistan, video appeared to show thousands of Afghan men, women and children streaming towards grounded civilian planes on the tarmac, with hundreds trying to find a way onboard.
This is probably following this incident #Kabul https://t.co/tVQSjXJ9v9
— AIRLIVE (@airlivenet) August 16, 2021
Gunfire at the airport had forced some passengers into shelters as they awaited flights out of the country.
Massouma Tajik, a 22-year-old data analyst, was among hundreds of Afghans waiting anxiously to board an evacuation flight. “I see people crying, they are not sure whether their flight will happen or not. Neither am I,” she said by phone, panic in her voice.
A Nato official said all commercial flights had been suspended and only military aircraft were able to operate.
US military officials were overseeing air traffic control at the field, which was still being run by Afghan nationals. An additional 1,000 US troops flown into the country – bringing the number of newly deployed to 6,000 – were helping to secure the airfield. On Monday morning the US announced it had secured the perimeter of the airport.
There were unconfirmed reports – supported by video – that commercial planes had been overwhelmed by people boarding, and some people had to be taken off flights because the planes were overweight and could not take off.
Throughout Sunday, Kabul was seized by a rising panic. As helicopters ferried US nationals from the US embassy to the airport, smoke rose from near the American compound as staff destroyed sensitive documents, and the US flag was lowered and removed.
France, Germany and the Netherlands, all Nato members, said they were pulling their diplomats out of their embassies.
Fearful that the Taliban could reimpose the brutal rule they enforced before 2001, Afghans sought ways out of the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings.
Those who had fled to the presumed safety of the capital from Taliban-controlled regions remained camped in parks and open spaces throughout the city.
On Sunday, the Taliban captured the eastern city of Jalalabad without resistance from government forces, giving them control of one of the main highways into landlocked Afghanistan from Pakistan.
They also took the nearby Torkham border post with Pakistan, leaving Kabul airport as the only way out of Afghanistan still under government control.
The US embassy in Kabul said the situation in the city was unpredictable. “The security situation in Kabul is changing quickly, including at the airport,” it said. “There are reports of the airport taking fire; therefore we are instructing US citizens to shelter in place.” Almost all US embassy staff are now at the airport.
Ghani fled the country before the insurgents’ entry – reportedly to Tashkent – saying he wanted to “prevent a flood of bloodshed”.
“The Taliban have won with the judgment of their swords and guns, and are now responsible for the honour, property and self-preservation of their countrymen,” he said.
In a joint statement, the US departments of defence and state said American citizens and locally employed staff of the US mission in Kabul would be evacuated along with “other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals” in the coming days.
“And we will accelerate the evacuation of thousands of Afghans eligible for US special immigrant visas, nearly 2,000 of whom have already arrived in the United States over the past two weeks. For all categories, Afghans who have cleared security screening will continue to be transferred directly to the United States. And we will find additional locations for those yet to be screened.”
Asked whether the evacuation was evocative of the chaos of the US departure from Vietnam in 1975, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said: “Let’s take a step back. This is manifestly not Saigon.”
But in a sign of the chaotic and desperate situation, the British ambassador to Kabul, Sir Laurie Bristow, was reported to be at Hamid Karzai airport helping the handful of diplomats still in the country process the applications of Afghan nationals who had worked alongside British forces now trying to get out of the country.
After the UK's Foreign Office initially said 34 Chevening scholars who were set to fly to the UK to study at British universities could not come because their visas could not be processed at the Kabul embassy, Boris Johnson intervened , saying: “We do want to make sure they are able to come and so we are doing whatever we can to accelerate their visas to get them over as well.”
The Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Naeem said they had achieved “what we were seeking, which is the freedom of our country and the independence of our people”.
“We will not allow anyone to use our lands to target anyone, and we do not want to harm others,” Naeem said. The group would not interfere in the affairs of others and, in return, would not allow interference in their affairs, he said. “We do not think that foreign forces will repeat their failed experience in Afghanistan once again.”
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