C-17A damaged in Afghanistan

No crew members or passengers were injured when a C-17 ran off a runway after landing at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan on Dec. 23, Air Force reports said.

The C-17, flown by the Air Force Reserve’s 315th Airlift Wing from Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., left the runway at 6:20 a.m., reports said.

An accident investigation board will look into what led to the crash, indicating Air Force officials believe damage to the transport could top $1 million. The C-17, tail number 89-1191 (P-5), is among the oldest of the transports.

There have been at least three other C-17 landing accidents in Afghanistan.

In August 2005 at Bagram Airfield, a pilot mistakenly thought the runway lights were 180 feet apart. In fact, the lights were 100 feet apart. When the jet came down, the right main landing gear was 10 feet off the runway, causing the plane to roll off the right side of the runway.

In April 2003 at an undisclosed airfield in Afghanistan, pilots landing a C-17 did not realize the left half of the 180-foot-wide runway was under construction. The plane’s left landing gear rolled through the construction site before the jet came to a stop.

And in January 2002, a C-17 attempting to land at Kandahar came down in a minefield 2,000 feet shy of the runway. The pilot was able to get the plane airborne and safely land at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey.

(Air Force Times)