(music)
(clock ticking)
- It's been an incredibly tough and heartbreaking week.
The whole world has seen
what happened in Kabul, Afghanistan.
It really breaks my heart, and everybody's heart.
Here today, I've got a couple civilian story to share.
These are the lucky civilian plane,
a last few civilian aeroplane departed out of Kabul
before all the madness descend.
The first story came from my friend Roman.
Roman is a Ukrainian guy, who's been operating
a firefighting Antonov-32 in Turkey last week.
(aeroplane roaring)
He wrote to me and we were talking about
to film about the Antonov-32 firefighting project
in Turkey next month.
And suddenly he said, "I'm off to Kabul,
"because the situation is worsening day by day.
"I have to go there to pick up our company aeroplane,
"to bring it back to safety."
And he's wrote to me saying,
"I don't know there'll be email again with you and me, Sam,
"because we don't know what the situation is."
And then he went to Kabul, and I'm really worried about it.
And when I saw the TV, all the situation unfold,
and I quickly contacted him.
And he was actually one of the very lucky
that he flew out on Sunday 15th August
on the Antonov-26 before all the madness happened.
And here is Roman's story.
- [Roman] I arrived on Sunday morning
with Turkish from Istanbul.
And I have with me the Captain and Flight Engineer
to take the aircraft.
The rest of the crew was already in Kabul.
So we went from arrival directly to
ramp nine, which is Afghani Air Force ramp.
And there we just prepared aircraft for flight
and took off, all the performance
was already done in advance.
Everything was very calm.
One hour before we departed, heavy helicopter traffic began
between the US Embassy and
the military base of airport.
There were shuttle flights every three minutes.
We took off at 12:01, and we started up at 11:00,
and we have been holding,
they were holding us for an hour
because two flights were arriving,
and then there was this helicopter traffic.
We were already running out of fuel
because our next destination was Manas,
and it's a four and half hour flight,
it's a lot for Antonov-26.
So we already worry running out of fuel,
our engines were overheating already,
so we got quite nervous.
And then they finally cleared us for takeoff.
(aircraft engine humming)
- The second story is a PIA A320 who got left behind
while all this madness is happening,
the ATC were gone, and the plane was left on the runway.
And the Captain made his own decision to take off,
to take the plane, and the passengers and crew to safety.
Here, is personal recounts of what happened that day
with PIA Captain Maqsood Bajrani.
(whooshing)
(Captain Bajrani speaking in foreign language)
(whooshing)
- The very last civilian aeroplane landed at Kabul
was Turkish Airlines, flight TK706 from Istanbul.
It was a Boeing 777-300ER,
it landed on Monday 16 August, the morning.
However, it didn't go to the usual commercial terminal
as that site's already occupied by a lot of people
who really desperately want to leave the country.
So the aeroplane was actually parked in the military site
with Turkish forces (bleeping)
protecting the aeroplane.
After an unsuccessful attempt earlier,
(bleeping)
the Turkish Airline's 777 finally took off from Kabul
after six hours of waiting on the ground
due to congestion and military traffic.
It safely made its way back to Istanbul.
So right now you might ask
why there's no civilian aeroplane going into Kabul
to take rescued people.
And that's because the airspace
is completely assigned to military.
And civilian aeroplane are actually steered clear
of Afghanistan airspace.
They don't fly over, because there's no ATC to support that.
So right now, military aeroplane,
like C17, A400M,
C-130, etc.,
are going to Kabul to take the rescued people
to many air force bases or nearby countries.
From these air force bases and nearby countries,
they'll be transported again on civilian aeroplane
back to their respective countries.
So we already see airlines like Lufthansa
has operated an A340-300 to Uzbekistan,
which is not where normally they would fly, to help out.
And we expect many US airlines will join in
the Kabul airlift to take 20,000 to 30,000 Afghans to US.
And this will include United, Delta, American,
Atlas Air, Kalitta, National Airlines.
And there will be an enormous airlift
out of Middle East US air force bases.
Again, we have seen aviation play a major role
in uplifting the people when it's needed.
We hope the situation will continue
to improve and stabilise,
and I will keep you guys updated with the latest situation
when it unfolds.
Thanks for watching today.