MONITORING (SW) \u2013 The sharp drawdown of foreign military advisers, mainly from the U.S., has virtually paralyzed the mission to train the Afghan Air Force (AAF) crews and maintain the service\u2019s aircraft, said a new report.<\/p>\n
Almost 94% of NATO\u2019s Train Advise Assist Command-Air personnel, tasked with helping build Afghanistan\u2019s air force, have already left the country over the last nine months, a report to Congress by the Lead Inspector General for Operation Freedom\u2019s Sentinel said.<\/p>\n
It warned If U.S. forces leave Afghanistan by the May 1 deadline outlined in last year\u2019s deal with the Taliban, the Afghan air force will have to maintain its aircraft and facilities on its own. But the service is still \u201ccompletely dependent\u201d on expensive U.S. contractors, who are also supposed to depart as part of the deal. Without this support, \u201cno airframe can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
The Stars and Stripes reported the strains of reduced manpower have left the command\u2019s mission \u201clargely static,\u201d with less advising and oversight. The report released Wednesday further said lost training time, lack of U.S. military evaluators to assess proficiency, and reduced advisor oversight have (led to a) decline in basic skills for aircrews and maintainers.<\/p>\n
TAAC-Air said it is trying to figure out how it will train personnel and maintain equipment during the drawdown. Dwindling staffing and the coronavirus pandemic prevented most face-to-face meetings between U.S. advisers and Afghan airmen, the command said in the report.<\/p>\n
The reduced U.S. military footprint has meant almost total reliance on contractors to train airmen, with fewer personnel to check on them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been difficult to hold contractors accountable,\u201d the command said.<\/p>\n
Afghan ground forces depend heavily on strike aircraft and helicopters to respond quickly to guerrilla attacks on isolated outposts, and to ferry troops and supplies. They are also crucial for the evacuation of casualties in a country with a poor road infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The increasing demands on the air force have strained the service, which has lost almost a quarter of the operational aircraft in its inventory over the past year, the report said.<\/p>\n
Three separate collisions destroyed five aircraft and damaged one, with others undergoing maintenance.<\/p>\n
The nation\u2019s few pilots and crew members are also overextended, flying excessive hours on missions often above their experience level, it said.<\/p>\n
Finding replacements for these pilots could prove difficult, as the drawdown led to the end of contracts to train MD-530 and UH-60 air crews. The training program for the A-29 program may be next on the chopping block, the report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFurther drawdown and the associated closure of bases will effectively end all in-country aviation training contracts in Afghanistan,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
Drawdown of foreign advisers paralyzes training mission at AAF<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The sharp drawdown of foreign military advisers, mainly from the U.S., has virtually paralyzed the mission to train the Afghan Air Force (AAF) crews and maintain the service\u2019s aircraft, said a new report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17,18,194,5,234,8,6,7],"tags":[12,13,168,187,487,488],"class_list":["post-3334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-report","category-security_","category-peace","category-world","category-politics_","category-us","category-governance","category-afghanistan","category-headline","tag-afghanistan","tag-taliban","tag-nato","tag-us","tag-afghan-air-force","tag-rsm"],"views":489,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}