Boeing has won a more than $3.4 billion US Air Force contract to maintain the Air Mobility Command force of C-17 Globemaster III aircraft over the next decade, the US Defense Department said.
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“The Boeing Company [of] Long Beach, California, has been awarded a $3,464,266,341… contract for the C-17 Globemaster III Sustainment Program,” the Defense Department said in a press release on Monday. “The period of performance is nine years and eight months.”
The Defense Department explained in the release that the contract will provide support and sustainment services to the government product support manager/product support integrator for the C-17 weapon system.
“Support includes … program management; sustaining logistics; material and equipment management; sustaining engineering; quality assurance; depot level aircraft maintenance and modifications; F117 propulsion system management; long-term sustainment planning; field services, unique foreign military customer services and Air Logistics Center partnering support,” the release said.
Work will be performed in multiple domestic and international locations and is expected to be completed by May 30, 2031, the release added.
The contract also involves Foreign Military Sales to the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the NATO Airlift Program Office, India, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Qatar, according to the release.
C-17 Globemaster
The C-17 Globemasters were in news recently when the internet was flooded with despairing visuals of Afghans trying to board a US military aircraft.
Thousands of desperate people rushed to the Kabul Airport to flee what they perceived to be a return of the brutal Taliban regime. In one of the videos, hundreds of people were seen running after a C-17 Globemaster as it was taxiing on the runway.
“In addition to online videos and press reports of people falling from the aircraft on departure, human remains were discovered in the wheel well of the C-17 after it landed at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.”
Social media had been flooded with touching images of people trying to move to a safer location post the fall of the Ghani government. In one of the pictures that had gone viral, hundreds of civilians can be seen onboard a US military C-17 transport aircraft, leaving their home to escape the Taliban.
The Globemaster was stretched considerably beyond its operational capacity to evacuate the fleeing people, drawing similarities to yet another such mass evacuation by a C-17 in the Philippines.
The crew was able to carry out what is known in military aviation as a ‘floor landing’. A maneuver was similarly carried out by a C-17 in 2013 during the evacuation of 670 civilians who were stranded in the wake of a deadly typhoon in the Philippines.
- Nitin holds a double master’s degree in Journalism and Business Management (MBA) from The University of Glasgow, UK. He has over 15 years of global experience in Marketing & Communications, Journalism, and Digital Marketing and widely worked & traveled across Europe, the Americas and Asia. CONTACT: Nytten@gmail.com
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