{"id":21837458,"date":"2026-09-12T13:08:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T11:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/afghan-air-force-five-years-after-taliban-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T13:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T11:09:13","slug":"afghan-air-force-five-years-after-taliban-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/afghan-air-force-five-years-after-taliban-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"The Afghan Air Force Five Years After the Taliban"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n\r\n<p>Five years after the Taliban walked into Kabul, one of the odder questions in military aviation is still unanswered: what is actually left of the air force the United States spent two decades and billions of dollars building?<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The honest answer is that nobody outside Afghanistan knows precisely. What can be established is the shape of the problem, and it is a case study in why an air force is not a collection of aeroplanes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 24px;margin:26px 0;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF\">\r\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#222\">Quick Facts<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.7\"><strong>What collapsed:<\/strong> the Afghan Air Force and the Special Mission Wing, in August 2021<br>\r\n<strong>What America spent:<\/strong> roughly 8.5 billion dollars on both since 2010, according to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction<br>\r\n<strong>Inventory at the end:<\/strong> SIGAR recorded 131 available, usable aircraft out of a total inventory of 162 as of 15 August 2021<br>\r\n<strong>What flew out:<\/strong> Afghan pilots flew roughly 46 aircraft to Uzbekistan and at least 17 to Tajikistan &mdash; around a quarter of the usable fleet &mdash; taking many of the best-trained crews with them<br>\r\n<strong>What was captured:<\/strong> the Taliban took more than 7 billion dollars of U.S.-supplied military equipment, including over 923 million dollars&rsquo; worth of aircraft<br>\r\n<strong>Types involved:<\/strong> A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft, UH-60 Black Hawk and Mi-17 helicopters, Cessna 208 Caravans, MD 530 light helicopters<br>\r\n<strong>Today:<\/strong> secondary trackers put the flyable Islamic Emirate fleet in the low tens of airframes. These figures are estimates and should be treated as such<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Washington knew before it happened<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The most striking document in this story predates the collapse. In January 2021, seven months before Kabul fell, SIGAR produced a classified report on whether the Afghan air forces could sustain themselves. The declassified version is unambiguous.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Sustainability requires the recruitment, training, and retention of qualified personnel in all areas of the air forces, including pilots, maintainers, and personnel in support positions such as general engineering, human resources, and financial management.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction<\/strong> &mdash; report of January 2021, declassified in 2022<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>That sentence sounds like bureaucratic throat-clearing. It is in fact the entire diagnosis. The American effort had concentrated on producing pilots and maintainers, because those are the visible outputs, while the unglamorous functions that keep an air force running &mdash; supply, engineering management, finance, oversight &mdash; were persistently under-staffed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>SIGAR recorded that U.S. advisers did not believe the Afghan Air Force or Special Mission Wing had, in its words, the ability to sustain themselves without continued adviser and contractor logistic support.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/afghan-air-force-uh-60-black-hawk.jpg\" alt=\"An Afghan Air Force UH-60 Black Hawk in formation\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">An Afghan Air Force UH-60 Black Hawk flying under the NATO Resolute Support mission in December 2018. The Black Hawk is considerably harder to keep serviceable than the Mi-17 it replaced. Photo: U.S. Air Force.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>SIGAR was equally blunt about what the American mission had become in its final phase.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;The change means that, rather than tactical training and advising, [Train, Advise, Assist Command-Air] will instead focus on managing a portfolio of Afghan Special Security Forces-funded contracts.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction<\/strong> &mdash; on the changing role of Train, Advise, Assist Command-Air<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In other words, the effort had shifted from building an air force to administering the contracts that propped one up. When the February 2020 agreement committed the United States to withdrawing its civilian personnel, including contractors, the props went with them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Black Hawk problem<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>There is a particular irony in the fleet the Taliban inherited. For years the Afghan force had flown Mi-17s: Soviet-designed, rugged, tolerant of rough handling, and supportable through a regional parts market that has nothing to do with Washington.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The United States replaced many of them with UH-60 Black Hawks. The Black Hawk is the better helicopter by most measures. It is also a machine with proprietary components, a controlled supply chain and a maintenance culture that assumes the manufacturer is on your side.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/afghan-air-force-mi-17-kandahar.jpg\" alt=\"Afghan Air Force Mi-17 helicopters at sunset at Kandahar Airfield\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Afghan Air Force Mi-17s at Kandahar. The type the fleet was moving away from turned out to be the one that could still be supported. Photo: U.S. Air Force.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Under sanctions, that supply chain closes. Western-origin aircraft become progressively harder to keep flying as parts run out and nobody will sell more. Reporting through 2025 suggested the Taliban had nonetheless managed to return a handful of Black Hawks to flying condition, with estimates in the region of six to eight airframes &mdash; an achievement, and also a measure of how far the fleet has shrunk when a single-figure number is notable.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/h1gqcfl1Azo\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin-top:-10px\">Afghan Air Force A-29 Super Tucano operations during the coalition period, when the force was at its most capable.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The pilots left, and that mattered more<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>In the days around the fall of Kabul, Afghan aircrews flew what they could across the northern border. Roughly 46 aircraft reached Uzbekistan and at least 17 reached Tajikistan. One Afghan A-29 collided in mid-air with an Uzbek MiG-29 during the influx; both pilots ejected and survived.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Those flights removed about a quarter of the usable fleet. More importantly they removed the people. A trained combat pilot represents years of investment and cannot be replaced by capturing his aeroplane.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>That is the asymmetry at the centre of this story. Aircraft are visible, countable and photogenic; the Taliban posed with them at Kandahar within days. Aircrew, maintainers, supply clerks and engineering managers are none of those things, and they are what an air force actually is.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P0JevswrTCg\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin-top:-10px\">The A-29 Super Tucano in Afghan service in 2016, the aircraft at the centre of the fleet that no longer exists in that form.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What the numbers are worth<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Published inventories for the Islamic Emirate&rsquo;s air arm circulate freely and should be read with caution. Secondary trackers list small numbers of Mi-8\/Mi-17s, UH-60s, Cessna 208s, MD 530s, Mi-24s and An-32s still notionally active, totalling a few dozen airframes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Nobody is auditing that. There is no published flying-hour data, no independent inspection, and a strong incentive for the operator to overstate readiness and for others to understate it. Treat any specific figure as an estimate with wide error bars.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>What is not in doubt is the direction. A force that in 2021 had over a hundred usable aircraft and a functioning, if fragile, training pipeline now flies a fraction of that, on captured equipment, without the manufacturer, without the contractors and without a large share of the people who used to fly it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The aeroplanes were the cheap part. Everyone found that out at the same time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/78oyQU3dSoM\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin-top:-10px\">An Afghan Air Force A-29 training sortie from the period before the collapse.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reports of January 2021 and January 2022, The Diplomat, CSIS, Reuters special report on the collapse of the Afghan Air Force, Defense News, The War Zone, aeroTELEGRAPH, and secondary fleet trackers.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\">\r\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/embraer-c-390-uzbekistan-air-force-first-aircraft-2026\/\">Uzbekistan\u2019s First C-390: Embraer Lands in Central Asia<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/usaf-ground-based-medium-caliber-gun-air-base-defence-2026\/\">USAF Seeks Medium-Caliber Guns to Defend Its Air Bases<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/l3harris-viper-shield-f-16-electronic-warfare-production-2026\/\">Viper Shield: The F-16\u2019s Digital Armour Enters Production<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>America spent $8.5 billion building an Afghan air force. Five years after Kabul fell, what is left, and why the aeroplanes were the cheap part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":21836858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21837458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Afghan Air Force Five Years On | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"America spent $8.5 billion on the Afghan Air Force. 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The A-29 is a light attack aircraft that can be armed with two 500-pound bombs, twin .50-caliber machine guns and rockets. Aircrews are trained on aerial interdiction and armed overwatch missions that enable a preplanned strike capability. The Afghan air force currently has eight A-29s but will have 20 by the end of 2018. Train, Advise, Assist Command-Air teams work daily with the Afghan air force to help build a professional, sustainable and capable air force. (U.S. Air Force photo\\\/Capt. 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