Afghanistan: testimony of the last American pilot to have left the country in August 2021

US Lieutenant Colonel Alex Pelbath was one of the first to arrive in Afghanistan aboard his plane C17as well as the last pilot to leave the country. With his 20 years of service in the United States Air Force, he evacuated thousands of civilians to Kabul, Afghanistan in the summer of 2021. The mission was the hardest of his career. “At first, we had to land in Kabul and evacuate soldiers, and then we were told: ‘Can you take other people with you?’ We said: ‘Of course’“, he says.

On the tarmac of Kabul airport, thousands of Afghans then tried to flee the country, clinging to American planes. The soldier always remembers the images of civilians falling from the sky.

Despite the risk of attack and the chaos, the lieutenant-colonel carried out a dozen evacuations. He responds to criticism of the unpreparedness of the American military: “No one was prepared for the reaction of the Afghan people. Of course, we weren’t ready for that. When we see the videos with people crowding around the plane, it’s not our preferred method of evacuation.” He does not forget the hundreds of Afghans he was unable to evacuate. After two weeks of evacuations, he was the last pilot to leave the runway at Kabul airport. The Americans had been present in the country for 20 years.