Photo: Reika. Parked between two other Afghan Mi-8

487 OVP aircraft on the day of its withdrawal to Russia

This Mi-8 was first seen without any serial presentation in mid 2005, it received a fresh external serial in March 2006. The colours on the fuselage refer to the Afghan flag. The helicopter was in use with the Afghan government / Ministry of Interior. It flew alongside YA-TAB and TAD, that sported nearly the same colours.

On October 9, 2012, this helicopter had a hard landing and was damaged beyond repair whilst being operated for a mining company. Fortunately, none of the 29 persons on board perished. Some reports say the heli was owned by Nyaman Air and the aviation-safety.net website says the operator was Pecotox Air.

This '88 built Mi-8 was delivered as 18 Orange to the Russian Army at Brandis, later on it was recoded to 12 Blue at Werneuchen, both in former East Germany. It was most probably moved to Chechnya were it was illegally sold after it suffered an accident in '93. The Afghan MiI possibly took over the Mi-8 and used it with the Afghan Special Narcotics Force (as this picture shows), but c/n is not confirmed. Probably 95059 was damaged beyond eco repair on 27 March '06 in a hard landing in the Spin Ghar district (Nangarhar province) after technical issues, all 9 crew and passengers escaped unhurt.

This is possibly YA-TAE. The fully unmarked light grey helicopter flew missions in support of the Afghan Security Forces as well as the Afghan government, but I do not exclude it was also used by secretive US agencies, as this helicopter was often seen on that platform.

This is YA-TAD. The fully unmarked bluish grey helicopter flew missions in support of the Afghan Security Forces as well as the Afghan government, but I do not exclude it was also used by secretive US agencies, as this helicopter was often seen on that platform. The registration was taken from a tube in the cockpit. YA-TAD was written off on 26 July 2006 on a flight from Kabul when it crashed in bad weather in mountains 35 km north-east of Khost, all sixteen crew and passengers were killed.

This HIP carried Afghanistan stickers as it was used in relief flights during a massive earthquake in Pakistan

Reported to be assigned to 485 GHR

This is an exceptional Mi-8 of the Afghan National Army - Air Corps (ANA-AC). It could be a Mi-17 type as it construction number started with 930001. Or is most probably a former Tajikistan Air Force Mi-8 that was acquired by CIA operatives in 2001 for secretive Special Operations Group (CIA SOG) over the war-torn Afghanistan. 607 was heavily used in Northern Afghanistan but probably not used since late 2004. It was parked at the Kabul platform, but a friendly ANA-AC military was willing to partly remove the cover from its cockpit just for my picture.