Pentagon Ends Afghan Pilot Training Program After Nearly Half Went AWOL Inside U.S.

The United States military “disbanded” a United States-based Afghan pilot training program after over 40 percent of the trainees went absent without leave (AWOL), the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a watchdog agency, revealed this week.

Although SIGAR did not provide updated data on if U.S. authorities captured the AWOL pilots, the watchdog agency reported in October 2017:

We found that nearly half of all foreign military trainees that went AWOL while training in the United States since 2005 were from Afghanistan (152 of 320). Of the 152 AWOL Afghan trainees, 83 either fled the United States after going AWOL or remain unaccounted for.

At the time, the watchdog agency deemed the unaccounted Afghan service members to be “high-risk.”

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The AC-208 pilot training classes that were underway in the United States were disbanded due to the number of trainees who were going absent without leave (AWOL).

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.

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In 2016, Reuters learned from the Pentagon that at least 44 members of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), which includes police and military units, had gone AWOL since January 2015, while training in the United States.

Afghan troops have gone missing on U.S. soil “presumably in an effort to live and work illegally in America,” Reuters pointed out, citing the Pentagon.

This week, SIGAR told the Air Force Times that the AC-2018 training took place at Fort Worth, Texas.

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The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency charged with efforts to locate the missing Afghans after they are reported missing, “did not immediately respond to a request for comment,” the Air Force Times pointed out.

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The phenomenon of Afghan troops deserting while training in the United States is neither new nor limited to the war-ravaged nation’s air force.

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The United States has granted asylum to at least two of those Afghan service members, including one apprehended trying to sneak into Canada and the first female Afghan pilot.

“It is not uncommon for Afghans to go AWOL while training in the U.S., with many claiming asylum after being apprehended,” Air Force Times noted.

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Nevertheless, early this year, a SIGAR audit found that “it is unlikely that there will be enough pilots trained” before the Pentagon delivers 159 state-of-the-art Black Hawk helicopters as part of efforts to address capability gaps.

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The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) “runs the risk that the aircraft it delivers will sit idle in Afghanistan without enough pilots to fly them. Furthermore, DOD does not currently have a program in place to train Afghan personnel to maintain” the UH-60 Black Hawks,” Sopko wrote.

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