The Afghan Air Force G222s: about $486 million bought, ...

In August and September 2014, workers at Kabul International Airport cut apart sixteen twin-engine transport planes and hauled the pieces to a local scrap dealer. The planes were G222s, refurbished Italian-built airframes that the US Department of Defense had bought to give the fledgling Afghan Air Force an airlift capability of its own. The scrap sale brought in about $32,000, roughly six cents per pound of aluminum.

That $32,000 is the number that made headlines. It is not the number that matters. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, known as SIGAR, reported that the Department of Defense had obligated about $486.1 million to acquire and sustain the fleet, and in a later 2021 accounting put the total effort at about $549 million. The scrap check was the salvage recovery on a program that had already collapsed. It was a symbol of the loss, not its measure.

This entry in the public-money series follows that distinction closely, because the story is easy to tell wrong in exactly two ways: by treating $32,000 as what the planes cost, and by blurring together three separate dollar figures that describe the same program measured three different ways.

What the program was

Beginning with a 2008 Department of Defense contract, the US procured 20 refurbished G222 transports, given the US designation C-27A, from Alenia North America, the American arm of the Italian aerospace firm Alenia Aermacchi. These were not new-build C-27J Spartans. They were older G222 airframes that had been refurbished, and that distinction runs through the whole story: the aircraft the Afghan Air Force received were second-hand machines rather than current-production planes.

According to SIGAR, of the 20 aircraft procured, 16 were actually delivered to Kabul between November 2009 and June 2012. The intent was legitimate and, on paper, sensible. Afghanistan is a large, mountainous country with poor roads and, at the time, an active insurgency. An indigenous air force with its own transport aircraft could move troops, cargo, and casualties without depending indefinitely on coalition airlift. Building a self-sufficient Afghan security force was a stated goal of the entire reconstruction effort, and organic airlift was a reasonable piece of it.

The execution is where it came apart.

What happened

The G222 turned out to be a poor match for where it had to operate. SIGAR and contemporaneous reporting describe an aircraft ill-suited to Afghanistan's high altitude and pervasive dust, and one that could not reliably be kept flying. The decisive failure was logistical rather than aerodynamic: there was no viable spare-parts pipeline and no durable sustainment plan behind the fleet.

The clearest single measure of the collapse comes from a specific window. Between January and September 2012, the fleet flew only 234 hours against a contract requirement of 4,500 hours, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine reporting on SIGAR's findings. That figure describes that one nine-month window, not the entire life of the program, but it captures the situation: aircraft that were supposed to be working hard were sitting on the ground for lack of parts and maintenance. SIGAR also noted safety concerns, including that the aircraft could not climb at altitude on a single engine, a shortfall the report characterised in stark terms.

The Department of Defense terminated the G222 program in March 2013. The aircraft were grounded. Termination and scrapping were separate events more than a year apart: the planes sat before their disposal was settled.

In August and September 2014, 16 of the 20 aircraft, the ones parked at Kabul International Airport, were destroyed and sold to an Afghan scrap and construction company. Press coverage and the SIGAR inquiry describe the buyer only as an unnamed local scrap dealer; no reliable source names a specific company, and this series does not name one. The reported proceeds were about $32,000, roughly six cents per pound. That six-cents figure is a per-weight scrap rate, not a per-aircraft price.

The remaining four aircraft had been flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. As of SIGAR's 2014 inquiry, their disposition was undecided. This series does not claim they were later reused, returned, or scrapped, because the primary record does not establish it.

The timeline

2008: The Department of Defense contracts with Alenia North America to procure 20 refurbished G222 (C-27A) transports for the Afghan Air Force.
November 2009 to June 2012: 16 of the aircraft are delivered to Kabul, per SIGAR.
January to September 2012: The fleet flies just 234 hours against a 4,500-hour requirement, because of a spare-parts and maintenance collapse.
March 2013: The Department of Defense terminates the program; the aircraft are grounded.
August to September 2014: 16 aircraft at Kabul are destroyed and sold for scrap for about $32,000; the other four are at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
October 2014: SIGAR's John Sopko issues inquiry letters, including one on the status of the four aircraft at Ramstein.
January 2015: The Department of Defense revises the scrap-sale proceeds upward to $40,257.
February 26, 2021: SIGAR publishes report 21-21-SP, its fuller accounting of the effort.

The money, kept straight

Three dollar figures describe this program. They are not additive, and they are not interchangeable. Keeping them apart is the whole point.

About $486.1 million: acquisition and sustainment obligated. This is SIGAR's figure from its October 2014 inquiry, covering money obligated to acquire and sustain the fleet, including roughly $60.5 million spent on spare parts. This is the "about $486 million" most commonly cited, and it is the acquisition-and-sustainment measure. One caution worth flagging: some outlets have mistyped this as "$468 million." The figure is $486 million.

About $549 million: total effort. In its February 2021 report, SIGAR gave a fuller accounting of the total effort at about $549 million. The report's own subtitle is blunt: "About $549 Million Spent On Faulty Aircraft And No One Held Accountable." The roughly $63 million difference between this and the $486 million figure reflects additional sustainment and related costs. The $486 million and the $549 million are the same program measured two ways. They should each be cited with their own framing, never summed and never swapped.

About $830 million: projected if the program had continued. SIGAR reported that officials estimated the program, had it run through 2022 as planned, would have reached a total cost of roughly $830 million. This is a projection of money that was never spent, because the program was terminated. It belongs in a different category from the obligated figures entirely.

Against those figures sits the recovery: about $32,000 from the scrap sale, the figure SIGAR reported in October 2014. In January 2015 the Department of Defense revised that upward to $40,257. Both amounts work out to roughly six cents per pound. Neither is what the aircraft cost. Both are the salvage value of metal from a program that had already spent hundreds of millions of dollars.

No one held accountable

SIGAR's 2021 report is notable not only for the dollar figures but for what did not happen afterward. Federal authorities examined possible contract-fraud charges. According to SIGAR, the Department of Justice took up cases in 2016 but informed SIGAR in May 2020 that both were too difficult to prosecute. Neither the contractor, Alenia, nor a retired US Air Force general involved in the acquisition faced prosecution. SIGAR's finding, in its own framing, was that no one was held accountable.

The honest critique and the honest defense

The critique, per the record. SIGAR's account is a case study in fielding a platform without the logistics to keep it running. Roughly $486 million by the acquisition-and-sustainment measure, and as much as about $549 million by the 2021 total-effort measure, went to 20 refurbished aircraft that proved chronically unflyable. The fleet logged 234 of 4,500 required hours in one 2012 window. The program was terminated in March 2013, and 16 of the aircraft were cut up and sold for the price of scrap metal. Had it continued, the projected cost was about $830 million. And when it was over, SIGAR found, no one was held to account. The loss here is the roughly $486 million to $549 million that was spent, not the $32,000 that came back. Treating the scrap check as "the cost" gets the story exactly backwards.

The defense, also per the record. The goal was not the failure. The Afghan Air Force had a genuine, documented need for organic airlift across a country with difficult terrain, poor roads, and an active insurgency, and standing up an indigenous air arm was a legitimate part of building a self-sufficient Afghan security force. Airlift capacity was a reasonable thing to want to provide. The failure lay in the execution: choosing decades-old, refurbished G222 airframes ill-suited to Afghanistan's altitude and dust, and, most decisively, fielding them without a working spare-parts pipeline or a long-term sustainment plan. A supportable aircraft matched to the environment, with maintenance and logistics contracted from the outset, could have served the same mission. The lesson SIGAR's record points to is about sustainment planning and platform choice, not about whether the Afghan Air Force should have had transport aircraft at all.

Both of those can be true at once, and in this case the documented record says they are.

Fact-check notes and sources

20 refurbished G222 (C-27A) transports were procured for the Afghan Air Force via a 2008 DoD contract with Alenia North America / Alenia Aermacchi. Of the 20, SIGAR summaries indicate 16 were actually delivered to Kabul between November 2009 and June 2012. SIGAR 21-21-SP summary; delivery detail via NBC News.
About $486.1 million was obligated for acquisition and sustainment, including roughly $60.5 million on spare parts. This is SIGAR's October 2014 figure. Air & Space Forces Magazine, citing SIGAR.
SIGAR's 2021 report put the total effort at about $549 million and found no one was held accountable. The $486 million and $549 million are the same program measured two ways, not additive. SIGAR report 21-21-SP (PDF), February 26, 2021.
Projected cost had the program continued through 2022 was roughly $830 million, a projection, not money spent. SIGAR 21-21-SP summary.
The fleet flew only 234 hours against a 4,500-hour requirement between January and September 2012, and could not climb at altitude on a single engine. Air & Space Forces Magazine.
The program was terminated in March 2013. Air & Space Forces Magazine.
16 aircraft were destroyed at Kabul and sold to an unnamed Afghan scrap dealer for about $32,000, roughly six cents per pound, in August and September 2014. ABC News, reporting SIGAR's October 2014 inquiry.
DoD later revised the scrap-sale proceeds to $40,257 in January 2015; both figures equal roughly six cents per pound. NBC News.
The remaining four aircraft were flown to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, with disposition undecided as of the inquiry. SIGAR inquiry letter on the four G222 aircraft at Ramstein.
The Department of Justice took up cases in 2016 but told SIGAR in May 2020 that prosecuting both Alenia and the retired general was too difficult; no one was held accountable. Yahoo News / Associated Press.
Primary report identifier: SIGAR 21-21-SP, "G222 Aircraft Program in Afghanistan," published February 26, 2021, mirrored on DTIC as AD1149071. DTIC copy (PDF).

The Afghan Air Force G222s: about $486 million bought, $32,000 in scrap recovered