kayhan.ir

News ID: 65620
Publish Date : 05 May 2019 - 21:24

U.S. Ends Training Course for Afghan Pilots Due to High Desertions



KABUL (Dispatches) – The U.S. military has shut down a training program for Afghan pilots and maintainers in the U.S. because of high desertion rates among the trainees, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
Desertions among members of the Afghan military training in the U.S., who often claim that they or their families have been threatened by the Taliban, have been a persistent problem for the U.S. military and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In its quarterly report in October 2017, SIGAR said: "Given the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and the fact that Afghan trainees who violate the terms of their visas suffer virtually no consequences for going AWOL (except for the possible return to Afghanistan), the AWOL rate is likely to either remain steady or increase."
In 2017, ICE reported that 152 Afghan trainees had deserted since 2005, and 83 of them either fled the country successfully, often traveling to Canada to seek political asylum, or were still missing.
It added that SIGAR officials were initially unclear about the details of where the pilot training was taking place and the number of Afghan pilots enrolled, but said that the program to train the pilots on the AC-208 aircraft -- a military version of the single-prop Cessna 208 Caravan -- had been moved back to Afghanistan to an airfield near Kandahar.
SIGAR did not say how many pilots and maintainers were in the first AC-208 class but noted that 40 percent of them had deserted.
When asked by Military.com where the AC-208 training had been taking place, SIGAR spokesmen initially said Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, but spokesmen there and at Columbus Air Force Base said the only training for Afghan pilots in the state was on the A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft.