The flight full of Afghan refugees carried a record number of people

Washington (CNN) – The United States military cargo plane whose cargo hold was full of Afghans evacuating their country, which was captured in a now famous photo, had more than 800 people on board, much more than originally confirmed by the United States Air Force, according to the crew that flew the mission.

The US military C-17 cargo plane took 823 people out of Kabul on the Aug. 15 evacuation flight, the crew said in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” on Friday. The plane was previously believed to carry 640 people.

The photo of Afghans sitting shoulder to shoulder, crammed into the cellar, went viral after being Posted by Defense One, and instantly became a symbol of the desperate need to jump-start America’s efforts.

The number is a record for the Air Force’s C-17 Globemaster III, a military aircraft that can be used to carry both cargo and passengers when needed, Air Force spokeswoman Hope Cronin said. The C-17 has been in operation for almost three decades.

“Our number 640 was a bit understated, we actually carried 823,” said Technical Sgt. Justin Triola, one of the plane’s crew members.

A radio transmission of the crew communicating with air traffic control reveals the extraordinaryness of the flight. When the pilot informed them of how many people were on board, the answer was “good heavens.”

When using the C-17 to carry passengers, there are several configurations that the aircraft crew can use to carry different numbers of people, ranging from 100 to 336 people at a time.

It is always up to the aircraft commander to determine what they can carry at any given time, Cronin said.
“Although there are a number of standard configurations for C-17 passenger cargo, this was a dynamic situation that required a dynamic solution,” Cronin said.

The previous record for people transported in a C-17 was 670 people, who were transported by the United States Air Force after Typhoon Haiyan passed through the Philippines in 2013.

The lieutenant colonel and commander of the C-17 aircraft, Eric Kut, who authorized the mission to take these people to a safe place, said they are “trained to handle that, to make that aircraft work to the maximum.”

The crew members of the C-17 that carried the 823 people to safety are Kut, Triola, Airman 1st Class Nicolas Baron, Captain Cory Jackson, 1st Lt. Mark Lawson, 1st Sergeant Derek Laurent and Top Airman Richard Johnson.

“We have women and children and people’s lives at stake, it is not about capacity, or the rules and regulations, it is about the training and directives that we were able to handle to make sure we could get out safely and effective to so many people and make the most of those efforts, “Kut said.

Triola said that people on board the plane were “definitely anxious to get out of the area, and we were delighted to accommodate them.”

“They were definitely excited once we were on the air,” he added.