Throwback: Day desperate Afghans clung to US military plane during 2021 Taliban takeover [Courtesy/NYT]
In August 2021, as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, thousands of desperate civilians flooded Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport in a frantic attempt to leave the country.
The rapid collapse of the Afghan government triggered widespread panic, with civilians breaking through security barriers and surging onto the tarmac as Western nations scrambled to evacuate their citizens and Afghan allies.
Amid the chaos, hundreds of people surrounded a moving US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft. Some ran alongside the giant cargo plane while others attempted to cling to its fuselage and wheel wells as it accelerated down the runway.
The desperate attempt to escape ended in tragedy shortly after the aircraft took off.
