Trio Of Afghan Mi-17 Helicopters Quietly Arrive At The U.S. Air Base

Three Russian-made Mi-17 Hip helicopters that previously belonged to the now-defunct Afghan Air Force arrived at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona yesterday and are set to be placed in storage at the boneyard there. These aircraft appear to be from among those that Afghan pilots and other personnel used to escape to neighboring Uzbekistan as the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August…

This is also the first concrete evidence that American authorities are taking custody of at least some of the ex-Afghan military aircraft now scattered around the world, the vast majority of which were originally purchased by the U.S. government.

Thanks to the help from @az.aviator on Instagram, we have learned that the trio of helicopters arrived at Davis-Monthan inside the lone Antonov An-124 Ruslan cargo plane belonging to Maximus Air, a division of the United Arab Emirates-based Abu Dhabi Aviation Group, according to a separate source familiar with the shipment. This also appears to be the first time Maximus Air’s An-124, which carries the Ukrainian registration code UR-ZYD, has visited anywhere in the United States.

While we can’t say with absolute certainty where UR-ZYD first picked up the helicopters, online flight tracking software shows that plane flew from Abu Dhabi International Airport in the UAE to Bukhara International Airport in Uzbekistan on Nov. 10, 2021. That same day it flew back to UAE, but landed at Al Ain International Airport. Then, on Nov. 17, it left Al Ain for Davis-Monthan, flying there by way of Oslo in Norway and Denver, Colorado.

The government of Uzbekistan had said back in August that some 22 fixed-wing aircraft and 24 helicopters that had belonged to Afghan Air Force had made their way across the border. Satellite imagery that The War Zone obtainedconfirmed that the vast majority, if not all of those aircraft had touched down at Termez Airport, which is situated less than 10 miles from Afghanistan. In addition to Mi-17s, the helicopters that made it to Uzbekistan included a number of UH-60A+ Black Hawks. A-29 light attack aircraft, AC-208 armed light utility planes, Cessna 208 Caravan small transports, and Pilatus PC-12NG intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms were among the ex-Afghan Air Force fixed-wing types observed at Termez.