I was reading Christina Lamb's blog and came across this.

My favorite quote is about the Ariana Airlines hijacking: A few years ago when a group of Afghans hijacked an Ariana plane and flew it to Stansted to demand asylum, I called the Ariana head office in Kabul for a reaction. The man I spoke to was stunned. “I didn’t think any of our planes could fly that far”, he said.

True.

If you don't know much about Afghanistan, especially under the Taliban, I suggest you pick up Lamb's book The Sewing Circles of Herat.