More than 600 people including men, women and children fled via US military plane from Afghanistan’s capital Kabul after the city was seized by Taliban militia.
Photographs showing stranded citizens packed up on the floor of the aeroplane, flying to Qatar, have been going viral on social media. Women with newborns and toddlers can be seen bottle feeding them on the C-17 cargo aircraft.
There were around 640 people inside the plane, while many were hanging on to the side of the plane, a US official told Reuters. This resulted in the highest number of passengers ever flown on such an aircraft, US defence and security news site Defense One reported.
People hanging on to plane at Kabul airport pic.twitter.com/TSoiI2tuHC
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The Boeing C-17 aircraft has a limited capacity of 134 passengers, including 54 on seats and 80 on pallets of the plane.
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Another video of the same incident showed the desperate measures Afghan civilians were ready to take in order to escape from the city. Civilians were seen clinging to the wing of the aircraft after it was preparing to take flight.
"The unusually high number of passengers was the result of a dynamic security environment that necessitated quick decision making by the crew which ultimately ensured these passengers were quickly taken outside the country," the official said.
Tragically, many Afghan civilians who were clambering up overhead gangways and clinging to the landing gear of taxiing planes fell to the ground after it started to take-off. Some human remains were also found in the landing gear of the plane.
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The US Air Force on Tuesday issued a statement where it said that the agency is investigating the circumstances under which the human remains were found in the plane.
The Air Force said that the aircraft landed at Kabul's airport on Monday and was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians.
"Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible," the statement said.
