AFGHAN TRAGEDY
Shocking vid appears to show Afghan stowaway trapped in landing gear of US plane after jumping on wheels to flee Taliban
SHOCKING video appears to show a stowaway trapped in the landing gear of a US plane after jumping on the wheels to flee the Taliban.
Several Afghans were seen jumping onto the wheels of the C-17 as it prepared to take off from Kabul airport and three fell hundreds of feet to their deaths.
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In the footage - which The Sun has chosen not to show due to its distressing nature - the man can be seen hanging from the side of the plane and it was reported the crew found a body in the landing gear.
It appears the man became trapped in a panel that is part of the landing gear mechanism and which closes when the wheels are retracted.
The discovery was made when the crew struggled to close the landing gear and then made an emergency landing in a third country, the Washington Post reports.
In another video, a group of men can be seen riding on top of the wheel bay as the plane taxis along the runway.
It's unclear if the person taking the footage managed to get off or be blown off before it became airborne.
Around 20 men are seen on the wheel bay as the plane goes by, with some even waving, in yet more footage.
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Again it's also unclear how many of them managed to get off or were killed when they fell off.
The tragedy shows the extent to which Afghan are desperate to escape what they fear will be a return to the Taliban's brutal rule based on an extreme interpretation of Islam.
In chaotic scenes echoing the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war, petrified men, women and children were filmed trying to get on aircraft after the Taliban stormed the capital.
With civilian flights suspended, many turned to US Air Force aircraft to try get out of the country.
Separate footage shows Afghans running alongside a C-17 as it prepares to take off with around a dozen holding on to the wheel bay.
Images taken from the ground show stowaways clinging to the plane as it took off.
Harrowing video shows the stowaways then falling several hundred feet to their deaths after being thrown from the plane as it took off from Kabul airport.
It comes as...
- Joe Biden said he "stands squarely behind" his decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan
- Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab admitted Nato allies were surprised by the "pace and scale" of the Taliban takeover
- The SAS are to join a "Dunkirk-style" rescue mission to save 6,000 Brits from Kabul airport
- The UK Ambassador will stay "for as long as possible" to help the evacuation
- A British student who went on holiday to Kabul says he has been safely evacuated
Two of those who died are believed to aged 16 and 17 and video posted later appeared to show residents collecting their bodies.
Sporadic shooting was heard throughout the day and the US military said its forces had shot dead two armed men by the airport security fence after coming under fire.
Civilian flights were suspended amid the chaos and then the US military - which controls the airport - said military flights were halted as they re-established security and clear people from the airport.
When flights resumed, desperate Afghans were seen crammed into a C-17 which took off with at least 640 on board - several times its normal capacity.
An astonished air traffic controller can be heard saying "holy cow!" when he was told there were 800 of people on board.
During the chaos, US Apache helicopter gunships were brought in to clear a path for the transport planes, swooping low to disperse people massed on the runway and firing warning shots.
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One witness said he had seen the bodies of five people being taken to a vehicle at the airport.
American troops guarding the airport were forced to fire shots into the air but it's unclear if those who died were hit by bullets or crushed in the stampede.
In total 18 people have reportedly been treated for gunshot wounds at a hospital in Kabul.
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Residents of Kabul are now under Taliban rule with reports the hardliners have reportedly begun house-to-house searches with a 'kill list'.
The stampede began on Sunday night and daylight saw another wave of people swarm to the airport as the exodus continued.
Desperate people were also filmed trying climb up a ladder to get on a civilian plane while others were seen being pulled on board another aircraft.
Paras from the 16 Air Assault Brigade have been deploying to evacuate Brits from the city as well as about 2,000 Afghan nationals who worked with British forces.
The speed of the Taliban's victory has shaken the world and came just weeks after troops from the US, UK and other Nato countries left Afghanistan.
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A few days ago US officials predicted it would take 30 days for the jihadis to reach Kabul - and 90 to take the city - but they have swept all before them in a terrifying rampage.
Twenty years after they were ejected by the US and its allies in the wake of 9/11 they are now back in power.
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Timeline of Taliban victory
April 14 - President Joe Biden announces US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan starting on May 1 and ending on September 11.
May 4 - Taliban fighters launch a major offensive on Afghan forces in southern Helmand and at least six other provinces.
June 7 - Government officials say fighting is raging in 26 of the country's 34 provinces.
June 22 - Taliban fighters launch a series of attacks in the north of the country, far from their traditional strongholds in the south.
July 2 - American troops quietly pull out of their main military base in Afghanistan - Bagram Air Base, ending US involvement in the war.
July 21 - Taliban insurgents control about a half of the country's districts, according to the senior US general, underlining the scale and speed of their advance.
July 25 - US vows to continue to support Afghan troops "in the coming weeks" with intensified airstrikes to help them counter Taliban attacks.
July 26 - The United Nations says nearly 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in May and June in escalating violence, the highest number for those months since records started in 2009.
August 6 - Zaranj in the south of the country becomes the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban in years and many more the ensuing days, including the prized city of Kunduz in the north.
August 13 - Four more provincial capitals fall in a day, including Kandahar, the country's second city and spiritual home of the Taliban. In the west, another key city, Herat, is overrun.
August 14 - The Taliban take the major northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and, with little resistance, Pul-e-Alam, capital of Logar province just 40 miles south of Kabul.
August 15 - The Taliban take the key eastern city of Jalalabad without a fight, effectively surrounding Kabul.
Air traffic controller's astonishing reaction to learning 800 Afghanis were crammed into US cargo plane
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