Afghan military pilots fled, keeping aircraft, themselves from Taliban

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — The U.S.-supplied Afghan air force took to the skies for a final flight overnight Sunday to Monday — not to attack the Taliban, as it had so many times before, but to save some of its planes and pilots from capture as the insurgents took control of the country.

At least six military aircraft departed Afghanistan in a flight for safety in former Soviet states to the north. Five landed in Tajikistan, Tajik authorities said. One plane was shot down in Uzbekistan, but its two pilots reportedly parachuted and survived.

The departure of some of the Afghan air force’s planes, once the jewels of the U.S. aid program to the Afghan military, kept them and their airmen out of Taliban hands.

It also added to the chaos in the skies in and around Afghanistan. Dozens of passenger planes that have taken off from Hamid Karzai International Airport also flew to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, neighboring countries with strong cultural ties to Afghanistan. A total of 46 airliners had departed by Monday morning, carrying asylum-seekers, many of whom were employees of the airport, Tolo News, an Afghan news agency, reported.

A spokesman for the Uzbek military confirmed it had shot down an airplane that traveled without permission into the country’s airspace.

It did not specify the type of plane, but pictures of the wreckage suggested it was a Super Tucano, a turboprop light attack aircraft made by the Brazilian company Embraer and provided by the United States to Afghanistan, according to Paul Hayes, director of Ascend, a U.K.-based aviation safety consultancy.

Uzbek media posted videos showing a pilot in a green flight suit, lying on the ground and receiving medical care.

In Tajikistan, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said three Afghan military airplanes and two military helicopters carrying 143 soldiers and airmen were allowed to land after transmitting distress signals.

“Tajikistan received an SOS signal, and after this in accordance with international obligations the country decided to allow landings,” a spokesman for the MinistryofForeignAffairssaid,Interfax reported.

It was unclear what will happen to the aircraft now in Tajikistan.

Afghan pilots had been targets of particular hatred by the Taliban and risked assassination.

The shoot-down in Uzbekistan and the Tajik authorities’ emphasis on their neutrality in allowing landings reflected the hard response that Central Asian nations have had to fleeing Afghan soldiers.