Morocco adds 6 Apache gunships amid US Army grounding of aircraft

The latest foreign military sale brings the north African country’s fleet of the Boeing-made attack helicopters to 19 of a planned 24. Two Moroccan air force AH-64 Apache helicopters fly low over a desert range in an undated photo. Morocco received six more AH-64E Apache helicopters on Oct. 26, 2026, bringing its total to 19 of 24 planned under a $1.3 billion U.S. sale. (Department of Defense) The United States’ oldest ally, Morocco, marked the latest delivery of American-made Apache helicopters this week, with a U.S. Army official touting them as strengthening the countries’ ability to fight side by side. But the latest delivery to Morocco comes at a rocky time for the AH-64E, just weeks after the Army issued an order to immediately ground some 400 of the Apache variant over concerns about transmission issues.

It was the second such grounding in as many months. The service halted all Apache training flights for a week in August after a crash killed two soldiers near Fort Hood, Texas. Maj. Gen. Matthew Brown, head of the U.S. Army’s Italy-based Southern European Task Force, Africa, was in Rabat, the Moroccan capital, to celebrate the country’s receipt of six AH-64E Apaches at an air base near the international airport, SETAF-AF said in a statement. U.S. and Moroccan pilots of what Brown called “the