Originally published 2021-08-16.
On 16 August 2021, the day after the Taliban entered Kabul, video from the city's airport showed crowds running beside a US Air Force C-17 cargo plane as it taxied and took off. Some people had climbed onto the aircraft and clung to its landing gear. Shortly after take-off, at least two were seen falling from the plane, and human remains were later found in one of its wheel wells. Among the dead was Zaki Anwari, a player in Afghanistan's national youth football team.
The footage became one of the defining images of the end of the 20-year war. This is what was confirmed about that day, what remains uncertain, and why so many Afghans were willing to take such terrible risks.
What the videos showed
Several clips circulated within hours. One showed hundreds of people sprinting alongside the C-17 on the runway, some of them holding on just beneath the wing. Another, filmed from a distance, showed small figures dropping from the aircraft as it climbed over the city.
The Afghan outlet Asvaka News shared some of the earliest videos and relayed residents' accounts. Locals near the airport told the agency that men who had been holding on to the wheels fell onto the roofs of houses, with one describing a loud, terrifying sound as they hit. Residents later reported recovering bodies in the Khair Khana area of the city. The original posts are no longer available:
Exclusive- A clear video (from other angle) of men falling from C-17. They were Clinging to some parts of the plane that took off from Kabul airport today. #Talibans #Afghanistan #Afghanishtan pic.twitter.com/CMNW5ngqrK
— Aśvaka - آسواکا News Agency (@AsvakaNews) August 16, 2021
(This post is no longer available on X.)
Not a scene of Hollywood, it’s Just #Kabul air port, people want to run away, after the Capture of Kabul by the #Talibans #Afghanistan
— Aśvaka - آسواکا News Agency (@AsvakaNews) August 16, 2021
By: @Mukhtarwafayee pic.twitter.com/ZLYieJm9mX
(This post is no longer available on X.)
What was later confirmed
Early reports spoke of three young men falling. Official information that followed was more limited, and the exact number who fell from the plane has never been firmly established in public reporting.
- Zaki Anwari. Afghanistan's General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports said that Anwari, "like thousands of Afghan youths, wanted to leave the country but fell off a US plane and died."
- Remains in the wheel well. The US military confirmed that human remains were found in a wheel well of the C-17 after it landed, and said it was investigating the deaths.
- The crew's account. Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said the aircraft had been surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians before the crew could unload its cargo, and that the crew decided to leave quickly because the security situation was deteriorating.
Across the chaos at the airport that day, at least seven people were reported dead, including two armed men shot by US forces after firing at troops. Because the videos are distant and blurred, it is important not to name or identify individuals in them unless reliable reporting has done so.
Why people were so desperate to leave
The Taliban had swept across Afghanistan in a matter of weeks as US and NATO forces completed their withdrawal, and the government in Kabul collapsed on 15 August when President Ashraf Ghani left the country. Many Afghans remembered the movement's rule from 1996 to 2001, when girls were barred from school, women were largely confined to the home and harsh punishments were carried out in public.
Those who felt most at risk included:
- interpreters and staff who had worked for US and NATO forces or embassies;
- soldiers, police and officials of the former Afghan government;
- journalists, activists and women in public roles;
- members of minority groups who had faced Taliban violence before.
With commercial flights stopped and land borders difficult to cross, the airport looked like the only way out. Rumours that anyone who reached it would be flown abroad drew huge crowds, many without visas or papers.
The wider evacuation
Over the following two weeks, the United States and its allies ran one of the largest airlifts in history. More than 122,000 people were flown out of Kabul before the operation ended on 30 August, a day before the agreed deadline. One widely shared photo showed more than 800 evacuees packed into a single C-17.
The danger did not end after 16 August. On 26 August a suicide bomber attacked crowds outside the airport's Abbey Gate. Local health officials reported at least 170 people killed, including 13 US service members and two British nationals; most of the victims were Afghan civilians hoping to be evacuated. The last US aircraft left Kabul just before midnight on 30 August.
Remembering Zaki Anwari
Anwari's death gave a name and a face to the people in the videos. He was a young footballer with a place in the national youth team, the kind of future that many Afghans feared would be closed off under Taliban rule. His story was widely shared by sports bodies and fans around the world as a symbol of how much people were willing to risk to escape.
The incident also raised hard questions about how the withdrawal was planned, and about why so many vulnerable Afghans were left without an orderly route out. Those debates continued in the United States and allied countries long after the last flight.
Afghanistan after the airlift
The fears that drove people to the runway proved well founded in many respects. Under Taliban rule, girls have been barred from secondary school and women from university and many kinds of work, and the country has faced a severe economic and humanitarian crisis. Many Afghans who helped foreign forces are still waiting for resettlement abroad.
The images from 16 August remain hard to watch. They are worth remembering not as spectacle, but as a record of ordinary people facing an impossible choice.
Sources: Al Jazeera, 19 August 2021; Wikipedia: 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan; videos originally posted by Asvaka News Agency (@AsvakaNews) and Mukhtar Wafayee.
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