No fewer than two pilots were confirmed dead on Sunday night after a US-made military helicopter crashed in the north of Afghanistan, the country’s defence ministry has revealed.
The defence minister in a Tweet on Monday morning said; ‘An MD-530 helicopter of the country’s air force, which was flying from Mazar-e-Sharif airfield towards Samangan, collided with an electricity pylon’
Africa Today News, New York recalls that in September, a Black Hawk helicopter commandeered by the Taliban government after the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan crashed during a training session in Kabul, killing two pilots and a crew member.
When exiting the country in 2021, the US military left behind billions of dollars worth of aircraft, vehicles, weapons and other hardware — much of which it said had been rendered inoperable.
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Some helicopters were also flown by former Afghan government forces to Central Asian countries before the Taliban took full control of the country.
The Taliban authorities have managed to repair some aircraft, including helicopters, which are believed to be now flown by pilots from the former government forces.
The regime showcased an array of equipment during a military parade on August 31 last year when they celebrated the first anniversary of their return to power.
Recall that the President Joe Biden-led administration of the United States had last week come out to defend its decision to pull American troops out of Afghanistan but said the 2021 withdrawal highlighted that Washington must better prepare for ‘high-risk scenarios’ in the future.
In a summary report which was published on Thursday, United States government agencies involved in the pullout blamed former President Donald Trump’s administration for issues that led to the chaotic US exit from the country.
‘President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,’ it read.
The Trump administration had negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that Biden pledged to honour. But Thursday’s review criticised the former Republican president for a lack of planning to carry out the deal.