The U.S. denied landing a charter plane carrying over 100 Americans.
WASHINGTON – U.S. authorities denied Tuesday the right to land a charter plane carrying over 100 Americans and U.S. citizens with green cards evacuated from Afghanistan.
Bryan Stern, the founder of Project Dynamo’s non-profit group, stated that the Customs and Border Protection department would not allow charters on international flights into U.S. ports of entry.
Stern also said that aboard a plane chartered by Kam Air, a private Afghan airline. Stern noted that the aircraft had been sitting at Abu Dhabi airport for 14 hours after arriving from Kabul.
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This group is just one of many that emerged from the ad-hoc networks of U.S. veterans, current and past U.S. officials.
And other individuals formed to support last month’s U.S. evacuation operation that they deemed chaotic and poorly organized.
DHS did not respond immediately to a request for comment. A government official spoke on condition of anonymity to say that they were not familiar with the matter.
The U.S. government usually takes time to verify charter plane manifests before land in the United States.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has stated that its top priority was to repatriate Americans and green card holders who could not leave Afghanistan during the U.S. evacuate operation last month.
On Monday, a senior State Department official stated that the United States knew of approximately 100 American citizens and legal permanent residences ready to leave Afghanistan.
Stern stated that the Kam Air flight carried 28 Americans, 83 green card holders, and six people who had U.S. Special Immigration Visas granted for Afghans who served the U.S. government in the 20-year war.
He planned to transfer passengers to an Ethiopian Airlines chartered plane to take them to New York City on their next flight.
However, Customs informed him that they cleared him to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.
He said that Customs changed the clearance to Dulles International Airport in Washington before denying the plane landing rights anywhere else in the United States.
He said, “I have a huge, beautiful, massive, humongous Boeing787 that I can see parked right in front of me.” I have a crew. “I have food.”
Stern stated that intermediaries in Kabul had received permission from the Taliban-run Afghan Civil Aviation Authority to allow the groups to fly a charter flight to pick up the passengers at Kabul airport.
Eric is a professional news editor, writer, and blogger for the last 10 years. He is working with NewsGater as an off-beat news editor cum writer.