The US Army has temporarily suspended all Apache helicopter training missions following a deadly crash at Fort Hood, Texas, that killed two soldiers and prompted a safety investigation.
“The stand-down will remain in effect until we have a better understanding of the root cause of the accident,” the US Army said in a statement on Friday.
The crash occurred on Wednesday, but the US Army has not disclosed a possible cause as investigators from the US Army Combat Readiness Center in Fort Rucker, Alabama, examine the circumstances.
Bell County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson William Coleman described the crash as severe, saying, “You could tell this was a violent crash,” while confirming that the helicopter struck no buildings but ignited a wildfire.
Temporary aviation stand-downs are not unusual after fatal military crashes, with the US Army taking similar action three years ago after 12 soldiers were killed in separate aviation accidents in Alaska and Kentucky.
The latest crash comes amid broader scrutiny of the US Army’s aviation safety, after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) sharply criticized the service’s safety practices during its investigation into the January 2025 collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet near Washington, DC, which killed 67 people.
The NTSB found that the Army had failed to adequately recognize safety risks in the heavily congested airspace around the US capital before the collision.
Fort Hood, a major US military installation covering about 215,000 acres, has previously seen fatal training accidents, including a 2015 Black Hawk crash that killed four soldiers.
The AH-64 Apache has been a central part of US Army aviation since the first aircraft was delivered in 1984, with more than 5,000 Apaches having been operated by the US military and its allies over the decades.
