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Hundreds of people run alongside a US Air Force C-17 transport plane as it departs Kabul.Credit:AP

A separate video showed what appeared to be two people falling from a military plane as it flew out of Kabul.

In a statement on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST),the Air Force said that a C-17 aircraft landed at Kabul’s airport on Monday and was surrounded byhundreds of Afghan civilians.

“Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft,the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible,” the statement said.

Chaos on the runway as a US Air Force C-17 transport plane leaves Kabul airport on Monday.Credit:AP

It added that the Air Force’s office of Special Investigation was reviewing information about the aircraft and the “loss of civilian lives - to include video documentation and the source of social media posts”.

Video of the episode of the people falling from the plane,recorded by the Afghan news media,has circulated around the world.

“We are all contending with a human cost to these developments,” Jake Sullivan,the national security adviser,said at a briefing on Tuesday.

“The images from the past couple of days at the airport have been heartbreaking,” said Sullivan,the first cabinet-level administration official to take questions from reporters since the Taliban took control of Kabul on Sunday.

Sullivan said US officials were engaged in an “hour by hour” process of holding the Taliban to their commitment to allow safe passage for civilians wishing to leave the country.

Asked whether the Biden administration recognised the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan,Sullivan said it was too soon to say and that the Taliban’s record of adhering to international human rights standards “has not been good”.

Reuters,wires

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