Air Force clears crew of C-17 that took off during Kabul evacuation while Afghan civilians swarmed the aircraft

• The Air Force has cleared the crew of a C-17 jet used during the Kabul evacuation in August.
• The jet took off while civilians tried to board, and human remains were found in its landing gear.

Air Force investigators have cleared the crew of a C-17 jet that took off from Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai International Airport last year while crowds of civilians swarmed the plane, according to various media reports.

The body of an Afghan civilian — reportedly a 19-year-old youth soccer star — was also found in the aircraft's landing gear when it touched down in Qatar on August 16. The C-17 had been deployed as part of the initial wave of evacuation flights from the country following the fall of its capital — Kabul — into the Taliban's hands a day earlier.

The Air Force's Office of Special Investigations found that the aircraft's crew had "exercised sound judgment in their decision to get airborne as quickly as possible when faced with an unprecedented and rapidly deteriorating security situation," an Air Force spokesperson said Monday, per CBS News.

Per The Washington Post, Air Force officials said the death of the civilian in the C-17's wheel well was "a tragic event."

Footage posted online at the time of the evacuation showed masses of civilians chasing a C-17 as it taxied on the tarmac, with some clambering onto its sides in a desperate attempt to leave with the aircraft. One video clip, seen 2.3 million times, appeared to show figures falling to their deaths as a plane climbed hundreds of feet into the sky.

—Aśvaka - آسواکا News Agency (@AsvakaNews) August 16, 2021

It's not immediately clear if the videoed incidents involved the same C-17 and crew mentioned on Monday. However, the footage was partly the cause for the Air Force launching its investigation last year.

Afghan civilians had flocked to Kabul's airport after the Taliban stormed Kabul on August 15. In a chaotic weeks-long evacuation, the US dispatched a fleet of C-17 jets to retrieve American civilians, military personnel, and Afghan allies still in the country.

The White House said that more than 120,000 people were evacuated from Afghanistan by August 31, although thousands of Afghans who wanted to get on the departing flights were left behind.

The US Air Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.