A French Air Force A400M triggered flares as it departed Kabul Airport.
Evacuations continued from the Kabul airport on Saturday after a backlog of evacuees caused an 8 hour pause in flights on Friday.
A French Air Force Aircraft performed a new evacuation flight on Saturday 21, August from Kabul Airport.
As the Airbus A400M took off to Al Dhafra Air Base, it fired anti-missile flares.
Evacuations continued from the Kabul airport on Saturday after a backlog of evacuees caused an 8 hour pause in flights on Friday. The subsequent chaos caused empty flights last night, with two flights carrying just seven and eight people. pic.twitter.com/0DZZ5v0vYL
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 21, 2021
It means the aircraft could have detected a threat and triggered automatically the flares.
The U.S. troops and the afghan army have left behind all sorts of lethal weapons, including advanced missiles.
An infrared countermeasure is a device designed to protect aircraft from infrared homing (“heat seeking”) missiles by confusing the missiles’ infrared guidance system so that they miss their target (electronic countermeasure).
Countermeasure systems are usually integrated into the aircraft, such as in the fuselage, wing, or nose of the aircraft.