A US military plane carrying 640 Afghan refugees has gone viral on social media. The latest data says the number of passengers is more than that.
Reporting from Aerotime, Monday (30/8/2021) the United States Air Force finally revealed how many Afghan refugees were transported by the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military cargo plane from Kabul, Afghanistan. The figure of 640 people turned out to be wrong.
"The initial count of 640 people counted only adults," the US Air Force's Air Mobility Command said.
The correct count was made when these refugees got off the plane and onto the bus. Since the number of seats on the bus is clear, it is possible to calculate the correct number of refugees.
As it turned out, many Afghan refugees brought their children and sat on their laps. Then the total turned out to be 823 people.
The US Air Force said this was the record number of passengers ever carried by a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. Under normal conditions, this plane only carries 134 soldiers.
Hundreds of Afghans crammed into US military planes evacuating them from Kabul (Twitter/@DefenseOne) Hundreds of Afghans crammed into US military planes evacuating them from Kabul (Twitter/@DefenseOne) Photo: Twitter/@DefenseOne
That is, this plane carries 6 times the number of passengers. Fortunately, this plane is strong, because in terms of power, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is not a canned plane.
As we can see from the Boeing website, the C-17 Globemaster III uses 4 Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 jet engines. This great power makes the plane have a maximum weight to fly reaching 265 tons.
The aircraft is 53.04 meters long, 51.74 meters wingspan. The cargo space is 27 x 5.5 x 3.76 meters. The crew is enough for 2 pilots and 1 cargo loadmaster. Its general carrying strength is:
77.5 tons of cargo, or
102 paratrooper paratroopers, or
134 soldiers with side seats, or
54 soldiers with side seats and 13 cargo boxes (pallets), or
36 liters of medicine, 54 patients and medical personnel, or
1 tank M1 Abrams, or
3 Strykers panzers, or
6 armored M1117
