I guess it is one thing to fly these helicopters, another thing altogether to maintain them, and to keep them flying in any useful military sense.
The Taliban appeared to have taken flight on Monday in a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that the U.S. donated to the Afghan government.
Videos shared on Twitter show the military helicopter flying over the Afghan city of Kandahar and it is reportedly being piloted by Taliban members.
A Pakistani military commentator tweeted, “Taliban flying an American-supplied UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. Reportedly over Kandahar. According to BBC, the Afghan airforce had 33 of them in their inventory back in June. Unclear how many were captured by the Taliban & how many were smuggled to uzbekistan. #Afghanistan.”
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2021/0 ... -kandahar/
The U.S. spent approximately $85 billion to train and equip Afghan government forces between 2002 and now.
The Hill reported, based on a 2017 Government Accountability Office report, that between 2002 and 2016, the U.S. gave Afghan government forces 75,898 vehicles, 599,690 weapons, 162,643 pieces of communications equipment, 208 aircraft, and 16,191 pieces of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment.
Further, a 2020 report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that between 2017 and 2019, the U.S. gave Afghan forces an additional 7,035 machine guns, 4,702 Humvees, 20,040 hand grenades, 2,520 bombs and 1,394 grenade launchers, along with other equipment.
Thousands of Afghan government forces were able to flee the country ahead of the Taliban advance and some flew out of the country on various military aircraft. It is unknown how many aircraft were left behind for the Taliban to capture.