An Afghan woman gave birth to a baby girl onboard a U.S. Air Force transport plane Saturday soon after the aircraft landed at Ramstein Airbase, officials said.
In a statement, the Air Mobility Command said the woman went into labor during the flight, and medical personnel at Ramstein helped deliver the baby in the plane's cargo bay. It wasn't clear when the woman left Afghanistan.
AMC said the C-17 military cargo plane originated from an intermediate staging facility in the Middle East.
Most evacuation flights into RAB have come from Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar, where evacuees were first transported after fleeing Kabul following the Taliban's seizure of the capital city more than a week ago.
The woman started experiencing complications during the flight because of low blood pressure, AMC said.
The C-17 commander decided to reduce altitude to increase air pressure in the plane, "which helped stabilize and save the mother's life," AMC said, according to NBC News.
The flight to Ramstein from Qatar is around six hours.
The U.S. military is accelerating the evacuation of thousands of Afghans who worked with U.S. and NATO forces in the past 20 years of war as the Taliban has regained control of Afghanistan.
The mother was aided by "Airmen from the 86th MDG" after the aircraft landed in Germany. The newborn and mother were transported to a nearby hospital and are in good condition, AMC said.
A representative for Ramstein said around 6,100 evacuees from Afghanistan had been transported to the military base since the beginning of Operation Allies Refuge.
Thousands of Afghan locals are attempting to board military flights as they run away from Taliban rule.
The Taliban fighters reportedly inflicted injuries on some who were attempting to flee Afghanistan.
Dramatic scenes of people handing infants over barbed wire concrete fences to U.S. soldiers at Kabul airport have been spread on social media -- including people falling from a U.S. military cargo plane as they attempted to cling to the aircraft as it took off.
More flights are seen to be mobilized in the coming days, officials said. The US. Department of Defense said Sunday, about 17,000 people had been airlifted from Afghanistan since Aug. 15.
