No point in letting one place on the planet be the incubator of all the bad stuff
Posted on 05/05/2019 6:20:48 AM PDT by robowombat
Afghan Air Force pilot training program in US ends after nearly half go AWOL
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon quietly ended a program to train Afghan Air Force pilots in the United States after nearly half of the course attendees disappeared, according to a Defense Department watchdog report released this week.
More than 40 percent of the Afghan pilots sent to train on the AC-208 Combat Caravan lightweight reconnaissance aircraft went absent without leave while in the United States, according to a quarterly report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR. The report, which was released Tuesday, did not detail precisely how many Afghan pilots deserted the training program, which has been conducted at the Fort Worth Meacham Airport in Texas.
One class of Afghan aviators successfully completed the course in the United States, according to the report. Two subsequent classes have been suspended. Their pilots – the ones who did not desert – have already been sent back to Afghanistan, where they will continue training on Cessna-built aircraft capable of carrying Hellfire missiles, which has been used in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
article continues below related articles An Afghan pilot practices flying one of Afghanistan's new UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters at Kandahar Air Field on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017.
Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes Afghanistan’s Black Hawk program is short of pilots to fly them The family of Afghan flight engineer Mahboobulhaq Safi, 30, keep photos of their loved one, who was one of the most highly trained airmen in the Afghan air force and was assassinated on Aug. 27, 2018.
J.P. Lawrence/Stars and Stripes Assassins threaten multibillion-dollar US efforts to keep Afghan airmen flying
The U.S. Air Force will also end another training program next year for Afghan pilots in the United States, according to the report. Training for Afghan pilots to fly the A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft will move to Afghanistan in late 2020, SIGAR reported.
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That training has been conducted at Moody Air Force Base, just outside Valdosta, Ga. While the program has also been plagued by desertions, SIGAR reported it will be disbanded because enough Afghan pilots will have been trained to fly that aircraft by that time.
In 2015, two Afghan pilots assigned to Moody disappeared, launching a manhunt. At least one of the missing men was later found in Virginia. Three other Afghan servicemembers who were reported missing in 2014 from a training exercise in Cape Cod, Mass., were apprehended in Niagara Falls, N.Y., as they attempted to enter Canada, officials said at the time.
Training for Afghan pilots on the A-29 was expected to continue in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan after the program at Moody is concluded, SIGAR reported.
As of February, the United States has spent about $8.4 billion to support and develop the Afghan Air Force, including providing 170 aircraft, according to SIGAR. To date, the Afghan Air Force has 119 fully qualified pilots and dozens more in training.
I prefer GSDs but that is a beautiful dog.
Gr8.
Been time to go for quite a while now. Time to GTFO! You are correct. ATWS!
I can not blame any of them. When the Islamist Taliban take it all back, these guys are going to get slaughtered. It only took the Soviets ten years to do the math. Our bean counters are stoopid.
Train them on a isolated island someplace or don’t even bother with them ,it’s a waste of time and money
No SIGAR.
I hope we are looking for them........
And will deport them when found.......
They should have been trained in Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, or Qatar. For those that have never been to the ME, you probably don’t realize how segregated it is. Yes, it’s filled with muslims that hate the west. But, those countries aren’t all, Buddy Buddy, with each other. The Saudi’s think their sh*t don’t stink. Neither to the Emirati’s. Iranian’s don’t refer to themselves as Arabs, they are Persian and they’ll let you know it. The Lebanese and Syrians aren’t far behind.
Then you work your way down thru the Jordanian’s and then start going lower to the Iraqi’s, Egyptians, Afghani’s, Omani’s, Yemeni’s. The farther down you go, the more they are looked down on by the Saudi’s, UAE, etc. Iraqi’s are looked at as dogs to the other ME countries.
And for those of us that have been to Afghanistan, get a .5 mile outside one of the “major cities” and it’s the Flinstones with a satellite dish on the roof. Those folks went from not being able to see a women one day and the next watching European soft-core porn, the next. Those pilots should have never been allowed on US soil. If they had trained somewhere else in the ME, those countries would have kept tabs on them and there would be no desertions.
However, I’m not automatically assuming they’re all headed to the nearest madrasa to strap on a bomb vest. I’m thinking they went to some strip clubs, a few nightclubs, etc and realized that they can go to a grocery store and not have to worry about getting blown to bits, is a good thing.
But, I’m not forgetting that they could be terrorizing a US city, some time in the near future.
Looks to be another cadre of pilots looking to only learn how to take off and not land. Hmmmm where have we seen this scene play out before?
Looks to be another cadre of pilots looking to only learn how to take off and not land. Hmmmm where have we seen this scene play out before?
I promise these people are not worth saving.Get out!!
No point in letting one place on the planet be the incubator of all the bad stuff
(hope they got the full treatment)
The program was misnamed.
Should have been called the American Jihadi Sleeper Cell Training Program.
What could possibly go wrong?
....and slowly he turned...
Afghans regularly top the list of stupidest breeds.
Afghans flying over America in combat aircraft. Stupid idea.
Also this is why this war will never end. We are way too busy “selling” them Super Tucanos and Caravans, and all the Hellfire missiles they want etc. And since we are not going to be able to train maintenance crews, we will “sell” them contractor based tech support and maintenance.
I say “sell” because they pay us with money we give them. That’s like me giving a kid an allowance and then charging them for dinner. I actually paid for the hole thing.
You’re still talking about dogs here right?
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