But an unrelated emergency call for air support forced the aircraft to take off 69 minutes ahead of schedule, the report said. There was no time to fully brief the crew members, and a database that would have allowed them to properly identify the hospital as a protected building had not been uploaded to the aircraft’s computers.
A satellite radio on board failed soon after the AC-130 climbed over the wide plain on which Bagram sits and headed across the Hindu Kush mountains toward Kunduz. The radio was the aircraft’s data link; without it, the crew could not upload the database or send and receive any other vital emails or information.
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