All Aboard Veterans of Withdrawal, Caravan Pilots

Three former members of the US-supported Afghan Air Force passed away after a crash involving a 1966 Cessna 172G in Independence, Oregon.

The incident occurred when Mohammad Husain Musawi, the pilot in command, struck power lines while flying into the Independence area. Local officials say that the aircraft had little warning before contacting the power lines, thanks to fog throughout the region around 1700 hrs. The Cessna knocked out power downstream from the crash site, and caused a small brush fire as it sat.

Musawi and the two passengers, Bashir Safdari and Ali Jan Ferdawsi, perished in the impact. The trio were American trained,  prepped as Cessna 208 Caravan pilots in support of the nascent Afghan air power before the fall. Ultimately, the Afghan Air Force never materialized as Washington had hoped, and the country's retreat from its nation-building experiment left thousands of allies high and dry under an increasingly hostile regime. The 3 pilots escaped the country in the summer of 2021 by flying their Caravans to Tajikistan in the hopes of keeping them out of Taliban hands. Afterwards, the trio were brought stateside as refugees, resettled in Oregon with the hopes of becoming commercial pilots.

Their actions in ferrying their aircraft out of Afghanistan did not go unnoticed by the new lords of the kingdom - and their erstwhile allies didn't seem too impressed with them either. Tajikistan placed Musawi, Safdari, and Ferdawsi in a detention camp for more than 2 months, interning their aircraft and denying them visitation. The pilots have still not seen their wives and children since they took action in 2021, forced to support their families from afar while hoping for a rescue.

“These brave individuals served their country with unwavering dedication, flying missions under some of the most challenging conditions imaginable,” the relief agency Salem For Refugees said in an online pitch to raise money for funeral expenses.

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