The U.S. military cargo plane, with its hold full of Afghans evacuating its country, was captured in a now-famous photo, flying more than 800 people on board, far more than originally confirmed by the Air Force, according to the crew that flew the mission.
The crew of a U.S. military cargo plane C-17 blew up 823 people from Kabul on an evacuation flight on August 15, the crew said in an interview Friday, the new day of CNN . It was previously believed that the plane was carrying 640 people on board.
The photo of the Afghans sitting shoulder to shoulder, packaged in the cellar, went viral after it was published by Defense One.
The massive number of people is a record for flying the U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, a military aircraft that can be used to carry both cargo and passengers when needed, the U.S. Air Force spokesman said. United States, Hope Cronin. The C-17 has been operating for nearly three decades.
“Our number 640 was a bit underestimated, in fact we took 823 out of it,” said Technical Sergeant Justin Triola, one of the plane’s crew members.
A radio transmission of the crew with air traffic control reveals the extraordinary flight. When the pilot reported air traffic control of how many people were on board, the response was “holy hell.”
When the aircraft is used to carry passengers, there are several configurations that the aircraft crew can use to carry different numbers of people, ranging from 10 to 336 people at a time.
It is always at the discretion of the aircraft commander to determine what they can carry at any given time, Cronin said.
“While there are a number of standard configurations for C-17 passenger loads, this was a dynamic situation that required a dynamic solution,” Cronin said.
The previous record of people flying in a C-17 was 670 people who were transferred by the U.S. Air Force after Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013.
Lieutenant Colonel and commander of the C-17 aircraft Eric Kut, who authorized the mission to make these people fly safely, said they are “trained to handle it, to make the most of this aircraft.”
C-17 crew members who flew the 823 people to safety include Kut, Triola, first-class aviator Nicolas Baron, Captain Cory Jackson, First Lieutenant Mark Lawson, Sergeant D staff Derek Laurent and senior aviator Richard Johnson.
“We have at stake the lives of women, children and people, it’s not about capacity, nor about rules and regulations, but about the training and guidelines we’ve been able to manage to make sure we could get out of safely and effectively to so many people and we make those efforts, ”Kut said.
Triola said the people on board the plane were “definitely eager to get out of the area and we were delighted to welcome them.”
“They were definitely excited once we were on the air,” he added.