Brian Everstine What can Kabul teach the military about evacuation missions?
Brian Everstine
Air Force C-5Ms, like the one pictured here at Yokota AB, Japan, have surged to fly more missions as C-17s take a break for maintenance following the U.S. airlift out of Afghanistan. Credit: Yasuo Osakabe/U.S. Air Force 374th Airlift Wing
The U.S. Air Force’s mobility community is resetting after the largest airlift in its history, and the service is looking to glean how the gigantic, short-notice effort will shape future operations.
“Any time you undertake something as significant as this [noncombatant evacuation]—where we moved, in 17 days, 124,000 authorized travelers out of Afghanistan—there’s going to be an opportunity, in an effort of that scale, for lessons learned,” Brig. Gen. Daniel DeVoe, commander of the Air Force’s Tanker Airlift Control Center (TACC) said at an Air Force Association conference Sept. 20.
In the short term, this means the Air Force has grounded or cut back the operations of much of its Boeing C-17 fleet and instead is surging Lockheed Martin C-5Ms and C-130s to pick up the slack. Consequently, crews are getting rest and mental health support before returning to prepare for different operations.
The evacuation operation saw aircraft picking up missions they do not typically take, such as Boeing KC-10s retasking to fly passengers between bases. Newly acquired but not fully operational Boeing KC-46s helped, flying in the first real-world, named operation in the aircraft’s short career.
Operations centers handed off planning amid rapidly evolving, high-threat operations. Bases transformed into tent cities hosting tens of thousands of refugees, and hangars became international airports.
These efforts will have long-term effects, as the Air Force’s LeMay Center for Doctrine and Development is assessing what happened and how it will change doctrine for future humanitarian missions or combat airlifts.
The world of military air mobility changed on Aug. 14 when the State Department ordered a noncombatant evacuation—shifting global operations toward bringing as many people out of Afghanistan as possible.
At the 618th Air Operations Center, at Scott AFB, Illinois, the emergency order started the process that Air Mobility Command (AMC) calls “breaking glass.” Airlifters and tankers fly about 250 missions across the world on any given day, and when the order came, aircraft landed and were offloaded. Crews not already rested took a break before heading to the Middle East.
“The system is primed, if you will,” DeVoe said. “We’ve got assets in the system that are operating. So, as a contingency kicks off—or in this particular case, we get the order to execute the noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO)—we already have assets in the system.
“So the trick becomes how do we charge that fully to achieve the capacities that we need to achieve while at the same time maybe stepping down—or what we call ‘breaking glass,’—of missions that are in execution and setting them aside to transition further to the NEO.”
Tankers set up an air bridge, staging to top up aircraft off the East Coast and again over Europe. An immediate response force of C-17s, on call for this type of situation, picked up soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.
The first C-17s into Kabul landed amid a hectic scene, one that in some ways they were ill-equipped to face. For example, the first aircraft did not carry any members of the Phoenix Ravens—specially trained Air Force security forces who ride on mobility aircraft that land in dangerous locations to protect the aircraft and aircrew. This included the two most famous flights early in the airlift: REACH 871, which set a record for having 823 passengers on board, and REACH 885, the C-17 that took off with Afghans climbing onto landing gear doors, with multiple people falling to their deaths.
Early flights also did not have medical personnel on board. But that changed as the operation continued, with many passengers experiencing medical problems. There were also multiple children born throughout the airlift operation, with pregnant women accounting for approximately 20% of adult female passengers.
Once the airfield was secured, operations increased dramatically. Original estimates said airlifters could carry out 5,000-9,000 people per day, but at its peak the airlift operation carried approximately 21,000 in one day. About half of the Air Force’s 222 C-17s were committed to the operations, and all told more than 360 air refueling sorties were conducted. Aircraft from about 30 nations joined the effort.
The Air Operations Center at Al Udeid AB, Qatar, that handles coalition flights in the Middle East had in the months before demonstrated a new way to generate air tasking orders using cloud-based software called Slapshot. This had seen limited use before the airlift, but the technology was heavily relied upon during the operation to plan all types of missions—not to mention providing real-time awareness to personnel from air traffic controllers to President Joe Biden. The new software executed 20-200 missions daily, despite a brief outage because of the heavy use.
AMC also, for the first time, used a new data tracking system called the Unified Data Library (UDL), which was in development for about nine months leading up to the mission. The UDL collected location and mission information for aircraft, which was shared to other U.S. government agencies and commands. This, for example, helped U.S.-based officials see what flights were coming in.
At bases in the Middle East, aircrews volunteered to extend their duty days, seeking exemptions from commanders to keep them flying longer than policies allow.
“They would come back to us with waivers to do more and we’d have to reel them back in,” DeVoe said.
Three C-17s broke down in Kabul and were quickly fixed to continue flying. Maintainers at bases in the region also worked extended days to keep them flying.
“Frankly, I expected more aircraft to break than did,” DeVoe said. “At its height, at any one given moment, 23 C-17s were in the air somewhere around the globe in support of this effort.”
On Aug. 22, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin activated Stage I of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to fly passengers to Europe and back to the U.S. The activation came as private airliners had already volunteered, but there were not enough volunteer flights available. About two-thirds of total civilian flights came from volunteer bids, according to AMC.
The airlift effort culminated with the high-stakes removal of the final U.S. troops and diplomats late on Aug. 30.
To protect the final C-17s, 60 aircraft surged to Kabul, including a stack of 20 bombers, fighters and surveillance drones, along with backup C-17s in case aircraft on the ground had maintenance issues. At 11:59 p.m. local time, the last C-17 took off from Kabul. Two F-15s were then the final aircraft in Afghan airspace, escorting the Globemaster IIIs out.
“There was a relief to see gear in the well of the last airplane,” said then-AMC Commander Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, who watched from an air operations center.
With the humanitarian operation mission over, aircrews are resting and C-17s are undergoing delayed maintenance and deep cleaning from their duties. Generally, aircraft require two days off for each day of surge operations, which adds up to about two months.
“We surged airlift,” Van Ovost said. “And yes, it was one of the largest surges we’ve done. But we’ve surged airlift before, and after you surge there is an actual period where we want to make sure we tidy up the airplanes and give them the service they need.”
The TACC has operational plans in place for missions like this, to “break glass” on ongoing operations. The airlift demonstrated one, showing what worked and what should change. This includes minor things, from how many people can fit on the floor of a C-17, to how the military can quickly get aircraft to a particular theater of operation.
As they return to duty, aircrews will regain currencies that could have been lost and then train for a different type of combat. The U.S. military’s focus has shifted to the Asia-Pacific region, which will include dispersed operations under what the Air Force calls “agile combat employment” and increasing use of data links to communicate with fighters. There will also be more exercises in the Asia-Pacific and Europe.
“What we are anticipating is more time to recover, specifically from the years that we’ve been there, but also to get ready for the things that we’re talking about here,” AMC Director of Operations Maj. Gen. Laura Lenderman said. “That’s a different skill set, the full-spectrum readiness for the high-end fight. Exercises will take a higher priority.”
In addition to the academic review of the operation to look at service doctrine, AMC is looking at the reactions of those who flew in the operation. Through the Airman Safety Action Program, personnel shared messages of how the missions took place. Leaders have collected those to say: “What are the things that we need to do better, things we need to do better for [procedures] or policy,” Lenderman said. “We’re pretty excited to see how that unfolds.”
