The Pentagon has decided to end a training program in the U.S. for Afghan Air Force pilots after nearly half of them have gone AWOL in America.
More than 40 percent of Afghan pilots sent to train on the AC-208 Combat Caravan lightweight reconnaissance aircraft went absent without leave while in the United States, according to a DOD watchdog report. https://t.co/tWvjN4ixh5
— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) May 3, 2019
According to a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report out this week, more than 40 percent of the pilots participating in a training program for the AC-208 Combat Caravan lightweight reconnaissance aircraft at Fort Worth Meacham Airport in Texas have disappeared and left the program, Stars and Stripes reported.
“Those students that did not go AWOL were pulled back to Afghanistan to complete their training: as a result, only one class graduated from the U.S.-based program,” according to the report.
Afghan attack pilot training program ends after airmen kept going AWOL in US https://t.co/xuiNAW1XwI pic.twitter.com/luS5vt2dZL
— The Hill (@thehill) May 3, 2019
Another program to train Afghan pilots in the U.S. on the A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia will also end next year, and that program will resume in late 2020 in Afghanistan, no longer on U.S. soil.
Afghan pilots have gone AWOL on U.S. soil in the past.
Three Afghan service members went missing in 2014 from a program in Massachusetts, and two pilots disappeared from Moody Air Force Base in 2015, Stars and Stripes reported.
One of the service members had tried to escape to Canada.
