Air Force Crews Pull Off Largest Airlift In U.S. Military History

This article was originally published on September 3, 2022. We will never forget the heroic actions of this incredible aircrew.

While the U.S. did not get everyone out of Afghanistan, they did get an impressive amount of people out of the country in a short amount of time. In all, 120,000 people and a massive amount of supplies were airlifted out of the country.

Evacuation Of Kabul

In all of United States military history, this was the largest non-combatant evacuation. While it was an impressive feat, it came with a lot of hard work and, for the pilots, pure exhaustion.

“Yeah, the C-17 community is burned out, never been ran this hard,” said one pilot who commented anonymously to Task & Purpose since he was not cleared to talk to media. “Jets broken everywhere. But we got a lot of folks out. Hopefully, they can find better lives in the U.S. Maybe the silver lining to this whole thing.”

Pilots who fly the C-17's refer to them as the "Moose." It was also the plane that had 823 passengers, setting the record for most people on a C-17.

“When I look back on why I chose the C-17 in pilot training, it’s this defining moment that comes once in a generation that makes the long stretches of being tired, of being stretched to the limits worth it,” said a second pilot, also speaking anonymously.

Special Conditions

Flying in and out of the airspace was nothing new, however. They had been doing it over the last 20 years. However, the conditions of the time frame and amount of people were incredibly unique.

The second pilot said that when you do not know exactly how many people you have, it's hard to assess how much room you will need for take-off. There is also no room for error.

“The higher you go and the hotter it gets, then yeah, it cuts into your lift capability,” the first pilot said. The flight was rather uncomfortable for many, and the smell was even worse since the plane has one bathroom. The pilot said that many people ended up just going on the floor of the plane.

Capt. Christopher Herbert, Air Mobility Command spokesperson, said that over 230 aircraft were pledged to the mission. It was a mix of C-17s, C-5 Galaxies, KC- 10, KC-135, and KC-46 tankers. There were also some C-130 turboprop transports.

The pilots said there were not just planes. " To me, it was always a vessel of hope."

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67 comments on “Air Force Crews Pull Off Largest Airlift In U.S. Military History”

  1. I don’t believe Biden got anywhere near 120,000 people out of Afghanistan, and if he did there should have been no American left or any Afghan’s who worked with us. I think this number is one big lie by Biden!

      1. Yes I agree. this is just another lie. I do not believe that 120,000 people got out of there and I do believe that the ones who got out were mostly not Americans. I think we have a lot of Jihadists brought into our country disguised as refugees. I heard that some of those planes were mostly empty flying out, but I did see one of the planes loaded with Afghans, young military age Afghans.

      2. The military can’t be trusted anymore. General Miley who was there was the same Miley who called the Chinese and gave them a heads up about what’s going on during the last days of the Trumps Administration. Who can we trust?

          1. He is right Gen.Sissy Milley is a traitor to this country . Just shows who we can and can't trust .

      1. There were terrorists on those planes ,they were listed on a terrorist watch list ,and some were found to be carrying explosives on them or their bags with their grungy belongings .

    1. More Biden Bull S… like the Southern Border is secure and he has stopped the drugs coming through the Open Bordet. 1st of all, how many of the folks flown out were selected to enter the USA? How many Americans were left behind. In all of our wars, we never pulled out leaving Americans behind. Where are these people, where are the 3 million illegals that came through Biden’s Open Borders this year? Who is feeding them, housing them, hiring them, educating them, clothing them? This is not organized/controlled like when our ancestors came into America is it?

    2. Afghanistan was just like VIETNAM!!! No planning just RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!! In BOTH cases the people NEW WHAT WAS COMING! They new LOSING would be for ALL ETERNITY! I was lucky enough to return on my own nickle some 52yr's later and what I saw were people RUNING FOR THEIR LIVES! Sending their children out at ALL COST! The people in the South are treated like second class citizens! I don't have time to tell you all of what I saw! So sad! Oh BUT THERE ARE BEAUTIFUL WATER FALLS etc.

  2. Yeah very few were Americans it's already been reported. How do Afghans get priority over Americans? I guess the world according to scummy democrats.

  3. YAHOO- WAY TO GO AIR FORCE. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE BRINGING THEM OUT.!!!! HAVEN'T BEEN OFF THE COMPUTER SINCE ALL THIS STARTED. . SO THAT MEANS YOU GOTTHE KIDS AND THE TEENS AND OTHER OUT IS THAT RIGHT. ASKING ALOT BUT WERE YOU ABLE TO GET ANY OF THE DOGS OUT ALSO.

    1. Oh,yeah that got all the afghani's out that they wanted but WHAT ABOUT THE ONES WHO HELPED THE US AND THE AMERICANS STILL HAVING TO HIDE FROM THE TERRORISTS BARBARA.

  4. First off you do not take out your military and air support before you evacuate citizens and local help, who ever thought that was a good idea is a Dumbazz. Next you do not set a deadline on when you will be out, we set the rules not them! Biden and his entire administration are amatures!

    1. Also you don't leave all your trillion dollar military equipment, planes, helicopters, Night vision equipment, special tanks and humvees, rifles pistols there. BIden is an expensive joke.

      1. Well, it was either that or Biden would have had to send them a planeload of cash. They would have used the cash to buy equipment like we gave them anyway. So he just gave them the helicopters, Humvees and firearms and ammunition so they wouldn't have to buy it. Wasn't that nice of him. Trump would probably never sent them any money or give them the equipment either.

        1. Experience in the Obama Administration with the Iranian Nuclear deal should have alerted them of the foolhardiness of Biden's behavior and that of his administration. It will 'backfire" upon them. The money given to Iranian Nuclear Program under the 1st deal financed world terror efforts by Iran and its Palestinian proxies, et al.

      2. I totally agree!! All of the billions of dollar's of state of the art equipment should have been disabled or destroyed prior to the pullout!!!

      3. They left behind 90 some K-9's. They died when an animal care group had them on the tarmac waiting and the planes were not allowed to come.

    2. I think that the Biden Regime, although illegally in place, has an agenda that is Socialist / Communist / Marxist which is intent upon making American citizens subservient to their Demonic / Power-hungry / Kiss-Communist China's agenda. I believe that the people who follow them are either deceived or in league with their demented thought.

    3. Gen. Milley must have asked the Chinese what to do? Remember he called them when he was working for the White House. We have traitors working in the military.

  5. Yes, they crammed a lot of unvetted Afghans into cargo planes and got them out. However, few of the escapees were US citizens. The DOS claim about 5000, but initially they said 2 or 3 times that number were in Afghanistan. Now they are saying just a few hundred "of those who want to leave" are left behind. Must be new math. I hope the Taliban did not pump a lot of terrorists into the US. Forgive me if I trust deep state DOD and DOS leaders about as much as i would trust a scorpion.

    1. I agree that those involved in the criminal conspiracy to take this nation into economic, political and slave subservience through deception should not and cannot be trusted.
      Note that the vaccines cause heart issues and some cause the inability of young people to have children. Please note that part of the Socialist / Communist agenda in the US is to reduce population by chemically removing the ability of people to have families and children, the strength of US society. This has been documented but suppressed by the mainstream news.

  6. So long as 1,000 or more Americans were left behind , the
    5, 000 Americans or 148,000 afghans air lifted isn't of great importance. No matter how the Ass woke pentagon, senior military officers , the A## clown Quid Pro Quo corrupt China owned Lying sack of crapola Joe Biden & his dumbass administration attempt to spin his Afghanistan clusterf##k in a good light. He they all are literally all shit.

  7. Kudos to the pilots, aircrews and ground crews that accomplished so much in such a short period of time in adverse conditions.
    On the other hand, shame on the Commander who forgot or ignored the “7 P’s”….
    “ Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance”….

  8. What a crock of shpit! Our so-called leaders are spinning so fast they're bound to get dizzy and finally get their comeuppance. Bring back our country. Term :limits is a good place to start!

  9. Originally there were thousands of Americans that were told not to go to the Kabul airport and to stay in place until told otherwise. The number of Americans evacuated and the number they are saying left don't make sense. Their math doesn't add up!!! Just how many did Biden/Harris abandon?!

  10. God Bless these miracle workers for their bravery. I cannot imagine these incredible flights done for people they will never see again. The only positive result of this horribly planned flight was the proof that our military personnel are the best in the world

  11. That is a bald-faced lie! It was proven that it was impossible to move that many people from Kabul Airport in the time allotted. We left well over one hundred thousand of our allies behind to be slaughtered by the Taliban and a couple thousand American Citizens behind to be used as terrorist weapons for bribery.

  12. The pilots and crewmen did an excellent job. The fact that they were able to get so many people on that C17 was outstanding work by the pilot, load master, and crew. My grandson was a load master and they have to calculate how much cargo the plane can carry safely. If being a few pound off can create a disaster. I wish more Americans could have gotten out, however that is not the fault of the military. Our military has always gone beyond what is expected of them. From this Air Force family well done Air Force, Army, Marines, and I sure they was Navy involved in some capacity. We will remember those who gave their lives in this operation. Condolences to the families of those 13 heroes.

  13. Remember the 12 that died at the airport gate. They all had open caskets. Talk to the families. They were not blown up like every media outlet lead you to believe. They were killed with American weapons carelessly left behind.

  14. WE the Legal People of the USA require PROOF of this so-called Operation by our Military that no one seems to be aware of because we watched with our own (non-lying) eyes wherein at the end called by BIDEN, there were no where near this number of people removed......Perhaps this was done by those ex-Military who volunteered to make rescue trips to get more people out, but BIDEN's people didn't do it, period! The writer of this article has some serious explaining to do!!!!!

  15. The mission would be alot more successful if all of the Americans Biden left bhind were rescued. Article doesn't say WHO was rescued.

    1. Actually adding on to my previous comment, I think this is really just an attempt to get more of the the Liberals to vote

  16. When did this allegedly take place? Was it only in the minds of the Biden Administration after they left Afghanistan and just before the November elections? Was the intent of this article to 'backpaddle" from the Socialist / Communist / Marxist agenda to subjugate the people of our nation?

  17. FIRST THE AFGHANISTAN EVACUATION WAS NOT PLANNED WELL????? THE WAY IT WAS DONE WAS LIKE A LAST MINUTE DECISION........AND THEY COULD NOT EVEN POSSIBLE GET THE PEOPLE OUT?????? THE PEOPLE WHO WERE LEFT BEHING WERE THE PEOPLE WHO HELPED THE OTHERS......THEN THEY WERE LEFT?????? NOW THEY ARE STILL THERE TO SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF THE TALIBAN!!!!!!! THIS WAS ALMOST THE SAME AS WHEN OBAMA FAILED AND OUR SOLDIERS WERE KILLED????????? THEN AGAIN.....BIDEN TOOK UP WHERE OBAMA LEFT OF??????? NOW YOU KNOW WHY AMERICA IS IN RUINS???????? THEY SHOULD BE TRIED FOR TREASON!!!!!!!

  18. Why can’t we just call this what it is: The worse military debacle in modern History courtesy of a president who thinks a president’s duties are to eat ice cream, photo ops, 9/5, 4 day work weeks, and be a mouth piece for democrat, woke angry liberals. Biden’s only agenda is to remake America to a country we don’t recognize.

  19. What was the time frame for this evacuation supposedly to have taken place, how many Americans were left there. and the equipment was supposedly left there because of Biden wanting everything done so quickly. This article sounds like disinformation to me.

  20. The Zoomies did get a lot of people out,good on them,however many were bad people bent on our destruction. I am sure we will pay for that in the future.
    Joe Biden also left behind hundreds of people who worked for us for years and were promised and lied to about leaving the country when we did.Not only that, Their names were given to the Taliban!
    Shame on you,Joe Biden

  21. Our military is the best. Love our brave military men and women. However, I no longer trust their leaders in the Pentagon. They are weak and WOKE and need to be replaced. I no longer trust The Government run by Democrats, The Afghanistan withdrawal was the worst in our history. Thank God for our wonderful, brave veterans like, "No One Left Behind, and Project Dynamo, who risked their own life savings and lives to do what Biden's government failed to do, save the lives of Americans and allies left behind. Their mission received little or no help from Biden's State Dept. And they are still doing it. Donate, as I did to help them complete the mission.
    God Bless Our Military.

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