40 Kam Air crew caught in Kabul Attack. Possibly 10 dead.

[Bomber Harris]

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-afghanistan-attacks/gunmen-attack-intercontinental-hotel-in-afghan-capital-kabul-idUKKBN1F90XC

[Basil]

an imposing 1960s structure set on a hilltop and heavily protected like most public buildings in Kabul.
"heavily protected", eh?
Inside job!

[flash8]

Representatives from the airline Kam Air told Reuters that about 40 of its crew, including many foreigners, were staying in the hotel and as many as 10 had died and many were still missing.

and a security team that fled “without a fight”
No surprise there... this is the norm.

[safelife]

www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/63692-taliban-attack-claims-kam-air-expat-crew-lives-suspends-ops (https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/63692-taliban-attack-claims-kam-air-expat-crew-lives-suspends-ops)

[Double Back]

This terrible disaster was a nightmare scenario I thought of many times during my 30 Yrs of flying intercontinental.
Not crashing somewhere but being rounded up in a hotel by some lowlife and ending somewhere in the basement of a hotel. Who knows how these girls and boys have been suffering the last moments of their life.
One night I thought I was getting close when awakening in an African hotel by what I thought a mob of thousands of aggressive protesters, the street was full of shouting people.
I was really frightened.
As it turned out later its was a pro-government demonstration, completely harmless. I still get the shivers remembering that night, and I can only have a faint idea of what those poor people from Kam Air went through in their last hours. Hiding in closets and so on, till being discovered....

[JammedStab]

Admittedly, going to places like this entail significant risk. Flight crew have been killed in this city before and hotels are a a target. However, tragic this is, one taking a job here is taking a big risk.

[MajorLemond]

The whole region is a disaster. My company recently started wet lease in the middle east, based in a country where westerners are a target. I received an email asking me to bring my passport in to get my visa sorted.

I flat out refused.

Unfortunately I know that this is not an option for others.

[Double Back]

I read there were Venezuelan citizens involved too. Sickening thought You try to land a job there because Your own country is in shambles, with one of the highest violence related death risks, only to get killed there. Those guys had not the luxury to be very picky in getting a job.... Family to provide income for, mortgages...
Yes, it will be a long process before that area is becoming some kind of stable, and it will be risky just being there, for a very long time.

[ATC Watcher]

Death toll reported this morning now to exceed 40 :(

[EladElap]

Terribly sad. Having been based there for close to 4 years and often chatting to the Kam Air crews on the ramp, I can tell you that they were a very professional group of air crew.

The sad thing is that the Afghan people are the ones that are going to suffer. Kam Air provide the only public service to many remote airfields. The Ukrainian Saab 340's were the only aircraft able to land at places like Bamyan, Chaghcharan , Zaranj, and Faizabad. I've read news reports that there are now people stuck either in Kabul or at those airfields, having to chose between waiting for service to resume or run the gauntlet on the deadly roads.

I really hope that the airline survives this.

[Double Back]

The attack did not give a big impact in western news media, because the number of casualties were not "impressive", especially when a few days later hundreds were killed in Kabul in a single blast.
Those criminals getting more and more "creative" and insane cruel by using an ambulance.

And even here in PPrune is did not generate a lot of reactions, I just wonder how this would have been if the crew involved were from some major Western legacy carrier..

As long as the country itself remains heavily divided (in religion), I do not expect I will see the country/region turn into a peaceful state during my time I am still around.... maybe not for another 2000 years...

[EladElap]

Absolutely. I remember pretty early on when EK had just started ops to Kabul, they went AOG with the A340-500. The crew tried to stay on the aircraft to over night (sensible!). They were apparently frog marched off the aircraft and sent to the Safi landmark hotel (another hotel that has been hit a few times). I don't know what sort of contingency plan the likes of FlyDubai, EK, and Turkish have for their crews in the event of an AOG.

The EK incident was prior to the Baron being properly open, which is the preferred hotel for most foreign air operators, due to its close proximity to the airport. However the insurgents know this, and indeed the US government issued a warning days prior to the continental attack, warning that hotels like the Baron were likely to be attacked!

One can expect more attacks to happen in the capital, as the taliban see it as the best way to undermine the Ghani government, who have kept saying that they have secured the capital.

[donotdespisethesnake]

I think it is inevitable that the Taliban will take over Afghanistan again. There's a clear historical trend since 1842.

[olster]

Flydubai did not have a safety plan for the unanticipated tech problem in Kabul, although of course they said they did. This is down to the incompetence and venality of management whereby lying to the crews is the default norm.

[EladElap]

Latest today....

Kam Air Still Struggling After Kabul Hotel Carnage | TOLOnews (http://www.tolonews.com/afghanistan/kam-air-still-struggling-after-kabul-hotel-carnage)

Officials from Kam Air airlines on Thursday said the company is still struggling to resume normal flights after nine of its foreign employees were killed in the Taliban attack on the Intercontinental Hotel 12 days ago.

Local flights to provinces have not yet been resumed but regional flights to some international destinations including New Delhi, Istanbul, Ankara, Almaty and Tashkent have started up again.

Company officials have said government has not done anything to help the company which has sustained huge losses. The incident has also had a huge impact on the morale of the staff, officials said.


According to a Kam Air director, the airline carried out 40 flights a day prior to the attack. Now however the number of flights has dropped to only 15.

“The foreign pilots who were working with us weren’t only pilots, but also trainers, we brought them not only to fly, but also to train our youths, we wanted to take advantage of their expertise,” said Samad Osman Samadi, CEO of Kam Air.

The company says that before the attack 60 foreigners worked for the airline but since the siege only about 12 remain.

“We are not conducting flights to provinces, the planes which we leased are no longer available; it takes time to rent planes, but it is not certain whether they (foreign companies) are prepared to come to Afghanistan or not,” added Samadi.

Meanwhile, officials of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) have said that rising threats have damaged foreign and domestic investment in the country.

“If a company is not supported, it will collapse, there are taxes imposed on them by government and this is a serious problem,” said ACCI deputy chairman Khan Jan Alokozai.

Kam Air is however negotiating with some countries to lease aircraft in order to resume normal operations.

Two weeks ago, five Taliban attackers stormed the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul killing dozens of guests including 14 foreign nationals.

[flash8]

The crew tried to stay on the aircraft to over night (sensible!).

Perhaps one of the few safer places to be, although no guarantee even then.

I am based often in Tashkent (Uzbekistan, bordering Afghanistan) and have to say it is an extremely safe country for Westerners, and I speak from fifteen years experience. My two months in Karachi in 2008 started with a US Embassy briefing where the guy lecturing us warned us just how easy it was to have your throat cut. That woke me up.

Afghanistan, Pakistan are failed states - if asked to go - please - just say NO.

[krismiler]

Similar incident with a FlyDubai crew in Iraq who wanted to stay at the airport but were forced to go into town. In Lagos, crew routinely have an armed escort to and from their hotel and can’t go outside.