The US Army’s Apache helicopters are crashing at a historically high rate amid a widespread problem with the model’s transmission, according to a CNN analysis of military accident data.
The helicopter type has experienced five major crashes since October, and a deadly mishap earlier this month in Texas killed two soldiers, sparked a wildfire and led the Army to temporarily bar Apache pilots from conducting routine training flights. With that crash, fiscal year 2026 is on pace to be the second worst for Apache flight accidents since a new model of the AH-64 was rolled out in 2011.
The Army announced that the pause in training flights, which exempted units deployed to the Middle East, ended Wednesday.
A lot of comments on here didn’t read the article and/or simply don’t know how aviation or military aviation works.
Some blaming the current administration even though the article notes a slightly higher accident rate in 2024. The current model Helicopter was fielded in 2011, and the article doesn’t mention when the transmission issues began.
This could be a maintenance problem, a Boeing problem. Is Boeing or an army subcontractor rebuilding the transmissions?
I just did inspections on some gearboxes because the incorrect self-locking nuts were used. I’ve seen a series of accidents caused by o-rings made out of spec internal to hydraulic servos. I remember NASA killing a crew due to o-ring issues. I remember a few decades ago Airbus had a series of helicopter accidents where the main rotors detached due to a gear in the main transmissions being hardened incorrectly. Before all that De Haviland Comets were coming apart in air due to metal fatigue.
We should be concerned with the reaction to and correction of the issues. The Army has grounded training flights, which they should. Not long ago the V-22 fleet was grounded for like a year while clutch failures were investigated.
Just because YOU’VE only just heard of an issue doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a long standing issue nor that it’s the fault of whoever is in charge right now. We need more information before we start finger pointing.
Though Boeing has been on a downhill trend since the McDonald Douglas takeover.