In the previous episode of “Afghanistan Calling”, writer and Canadian civilian helicopter pilot Allan Cram questioned the sense and safety of flying a dangerous mission to an Afghanistan hot spot and found himself up against his client and the military. In this episode, things go from weird to weirder as Cram struggles with a classic Catch-22.
We flew several flights to the north and conducted a survey near Kabul for the site of a proposed generating plant. But this construction company wanted good little soldiers to follow their orders, because, by God, they were under pressure from the US State Department to get that hydro-electric dam working and provide electricity to southern Afghanistan. And we were in the way.
The second meeting at the construction company’s office sealed our fate. No longer did we meet with the Deputy Chief — this time it was with the Chief, a small wrinkled and sour old man who sat smugly in one corner of the conference room and asked, “What the fuck has changed since April? Our last pilot flew everywhere and anywhere, without complaint. What the hell is the matter with you? Are you fucking girls or something?”
Now I hadn’t heard this type of argument in the aviation world for 30 years, and I congratulated this “Chief” in taking aviation safety back to the dark ages.
“This is classic,” I said. “The other guy used to do this, the other guy used to do that. In Canada, our response to this is usually to point out that the other guy is dead because he crashed. And it’s true here as well — if the other guys were so wonderful, why did you have three major accidents?”
The Chief glanced at two men sitting across from him, men who had deliberately sat in the shadows and had not bothered to introduce themselves when we entered the room.
“You’ve been hired to fly in Afghanistan. We have a Security Manager that provides information for your safety. What the fuck else do you need?”
The reactions in the room from everyone were swift, and any semblance of a professional meeting quickly went downhill.
Finally one of the military advisors tried to calm everyone down. “Regarding things that have changed since April, NATO did begin ‘Operation Achilles’ in late March — an offensive to rid the Helmand Valley of the Taliban. But special operations are going on all the time.” He presented that information as though a new offensive was no different from trying out a new restaurant.
What he didn’t offer was that Operation Achilles had not been successful. The Taliban still controlled much of the valley, and now they wanted retribution for their losses.
“If I can arrange a meeting with the ISAF personnel in Kandahar — the real people you should talk to — will you agree to it?” he asked. This clearly indicated that the people we met in Kandahar — ISAF officers — were not to be trusted.
“Of course,” I said. “But I want to make one thing very clear. I came over here based on a signed contract, one that clearly stated our scope of operations were between Kabul and Kandahar, on the highway.”
The Chief, the Security Manager and the spooks sitting in the dark across the table burst out in laughter.
“And from what I’ve seen so far,” I continued, “I don’t see us flying to Kajaki for some time.”
_____
This time we were expected in Kandahar — a complete briefing team had been assembled including an ISAF Intelligence Officer, an Airspace Control Officer, a Personnel Recovery Specialist, a Communications Specialist and two CH-47 Chinook pilots. The Royal Air Force Captain who’d briefed us the first time was there as well, .
A Wing Commander, a 55-year old Royal Air Force Colonel who reminded me of an elementary school teacher — he had a round, friendly face, grandfatherly glasses and wavy red hair with just a hint of grey — handled the introductions.
He prefaced the meeting by stating that ISAF will do whatever is necessary to help us integrate our civilian helicopter into the theatre of operations in the Kandahar and Helmand Provinces. “This construction firm is doing some important work in Afghanistan — helping with the reconstruction projects all across the country, and we recognize the importance of the Kajaki Dam.”
I glanced at the Royal Air Force Captain who only three days ago had told me these guys had worn out their welcome with ISAF. He said that they had begged for emergency trips into the dam to provide food and water for their men, and when the ISAF helicopter repositioned to load on the cargo, most of it had been construction equipment — not emergency rations. The pilots hadn’t been impressed.
He didn’t made eye contact with me as the Wing Commander continued. In fact, after the formal meeting one of the Chinook pilots came up to me and said it really wasn’t that bad going to the dam. Quite the different tune from what we’d heard before.
Now to give this whole thing some perspective, the Chinook pilot was probably right. It was quite possible that we could have flown anywhere in Afghanistan, unarmed and in the dark as far as communications went, and not had a problem. It’s when you have a problem that was the major concern — no one was assigned to rescue us in the event of a forced-landing. Our customer didn’t seem to want ISAF to know what they were doing, where they were flying, or when. And all of that went against everything I knew of aviation safety procedures.
The Intelligence Officer at the meeting seemed genuine and told us much of what we’d heard before: Kajaki has seen a lot of activity; the Taliban have stated their intention of targeting aircraft; enemy tactics have changed and they are starting to fire back at the Attack Helicopters; the last three or four miles to Kajaki Dam are in high risk territory. Her brief went on for 20-minutes, and had me convinced that we didn’t belong there.
ISAF agreed to begin developing SOP’s to integrate our civilian operation into their zones of combat, and they said it would take some time. But this did not stop our customer from assigning missions to other high-risk areas. I had dug in my heels now and I refused many of those flights as well, citing the lack of security briefings, the lack of any SOP’s as requested and required. What good is a contract if it can’t be enforced?
We’ll fly anywhere classified as Green, until proper SOPs [Standard Operating Procedures] are developed. But our customer was clearly not listening to us.
Even after reproducing the aircraft’s Weight-Altitude-Temperature Limitations Chart, providing key take-off weights for various temperatures and altitudes so they didn’t have to interpret the chart, we still received assignments that generally placed us at least 800 lbs overweight. They provided us passenger weights averaging between 95 and 110 kilograms (210 to 245 lbs), but when we weighed the passengers — decked out in armoured vests and survival gear—actual weights were closer to 130 to 142 kgs (286 to 314 lbs).
This “adventure” in Afghanistan had evolved from a Twilight Zone episode to something resembling afternoon medication time in a Psyche Ward. I felt like Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s novel, Catch-22, in which Yossarian, a bombardier, wants to be excused from combat flight duty. But to do so he must submit an official medical diagnosis from the flight surgeon stating that he is unfit to fly due to insanity. However, according to regulations, any sane person would not want to fly combat missions because they are so dangerous. However, by requesting to have his sanity evaluated, Yossarian demonstrates that he is in fact sane and therefore fit to fly because one has to be sane to recognize one’s own insanity.
In formal Propositional logic symbolism, this can be expressed as:
“((C (A B)) (A B) (B A))”
To avoid combat (outcome C), one must be both crazy (proposition A) and request to have a sanity evaluation (proposition B). If one is crazy (A) then they would never (according to regulations) request an evaluation i.e. (B). But someone who does request an evaluation (B) is self aware enough that they are considered not crazy! i.e. (A). Thus one can never leave (C cannot occur).
In probability theory, Catch-22 refers to a situation in which multiple probabilistic events exist, and the desirable outcome is the confluence of these events, but there is zero probability of this happening. Although few pilots are trained mathematicians, we deal with this Catch-22 probability theory during our entire flying career beginning with that first job, where the Chief Pilot swears he would hire you if you had experience, but how do you get experience without a job?
In Afghanistan the probability of having safe and secure procedures for flying an unarmed, loud and slow helicopter into active combat zones seemed far-fetched. And the probability of a forced landing in Taliban-held territory seemed more and more likely — and no doubt, if we survived the landing, we would be the next Internet beheading victims.
“No” became a common word in my vocabulary.
Only a few days after our second briefing in Kandahar, the Country Manager was summoned to Washington to clarify our risk management position. Two days later we learned that he had been fired, at the request of our customer. And two days after that I learned that the customer had asked for me to be replaced.
I flew back to Canada on September 9 and quickly learned to appreciate the comforts of home. I floated in our sparkling blue pool and in the distance I could see the ocean and the Malahat—a 1500-foot mountain near Victoria. I didn’t hear bombs exploding in the distance, nor was the air filled with a fine talcum powder dust. No one asked me to fly into a combat zone — untrained, unprepared and ill equipped.
I learned to sleep soundly once again.
Photo Credits
“212 Flying over Afghanistan” ISAF Media
“Kajaki, Afghanistan” ISAF photo by Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Duran, U.S. Army
Have just finished reading your articles on Afghanistan. Really fascinating especially as I listened this morning to a Radio 4 broadcast about the situations there. The country has about 49 different languages. Only three recent British Ambassadors have been trained in some of the languages and no one in Pashtun which is the majority tongue. Even after 14 months ( normal turn around time) the Ambassadors realised that they still couldn’t comprehend the Afghan mindset so the whole operation is a glorious waste of time, money and especially human life for the young soldiers. It is truly gross and seems Vietnamian in its proportions. Thank god you got out. Blair and Bush have a lot to answer for.
Thanks for a good read.