Afghan pilot defected to Pakistan with military plane in 1984

An Afghan military transport aircraft crossed into Pakistan on 22 September 1984 and landed at Miran Shah airbase in North Waziristan, BBC Urdu reported. The Soviet-built Antonov An-26, piloted by Afghan Air Force Colonel Haji Faqir Ahmad, was one of several Afghan aircraft that defected to Pakistan during the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

The BBC Urdu account described the event as part of a wider pattern of desertions and low morale in the Afghan military. A declassified CIA special analysis report dated 23 March 1979 showed that defections and discontent began before Soviet forces entered Afghanistan later that year. Encyclopaedia Britannica figures cited in the report put Afghan army strength at 105,000 in 1978, falling to around 20,000 to 30,000 by 1987. Time magazine reported in January 1980 that the Afghan army had shrunk below 65,000 because of mass desertions.

Another Time report cited by BBC Urdu described an incident near Torkham in April 1985, when three Afghan soldiers defected to Pakistan. A Soviet armoured vehicle with a white flag demanded their return, and after Pakistan refused, 80 artillery shells were fired at a Pakistani post over two days. Pakistan returned the soldiers on the third day.

Air Commodore Khalid Kamal, in a memoir published in the Pakistan Air Force journal Second to None, described the operation to fly the An-26 out of Miran Shah. He said Wing Commander Ghafoor and Squadron Leader Zulfiqar planned the mission, and he volunteered as co-pilot. Kamal wrote that Ghafoor warned him the mission was extremely dangerous and that Soviet forces would try to shoot the plane down once it took off.

Kamal said the Afghan captain had already sent his family to Pakistan and had sought political asylum. The captain's co-pilot was angry because he had not been informed of the plan in time to send his own family. The PAF crew met the Afghan pilots in a closed room at the officers' mess. Before takeoff, the Afghan captain helped with engine start but was told he would not fly with them. He became furious and was forcibly removed. While leaving, he flipped a switch on the flight engineer's panel that the PAF crew did not notice.

The Pakistani crew flew at very low altitude through the valley to avoid Soviet fighter patrols, with PAF Mirage aircraft escorting them in a zigzag pattern. The aircraft was flown to PAF Base Masroor. During landing, the rear ramp opened and dragged on the ground, caused by the switch the Afghan captain had changed. The An-26 was later given Pakistani markings and registration J-754, used by No. 12 Squadron, and eventually placed at the PAF Museum in Karachi.