Every war the Salvadoran Air Force has fought
In the 1969 war the FAS and Honduran accounts agree that two Salvadoran pilots were killed on 17 July; Honduras credits Captain Fernando Soto with three Salvadoran aircraft that day, and every kill and loss figure is given as one side’s claim. In the civil war the UN Commission on the Truth for El Salvador recorded among its findings attacks from the air on fleeing civilians and attributed about 85 per cent of the abuses it examined to state forces, and also documented FMLN crimes; the high command rejected the report as biased. Civilian deaths from air attack are estimates, by Tutela Legal and by Corum. Where a consolidated sortie or loss figure exists in the official record it is given here; where accounts disagree, the range is shown and the disagreement named. Blank cells are blank because no figure could be verified, not because the fighting was small.
From the 1969 war with Honduras and the civil war of 1980–1992 to helicopter support for UN missions.
| Conflicto | Años | Contra | Avión principal | Salidas | Avión perdido | |
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| The war with Honduras (Football War)the Hundred Hours War (Guerra de las Cien Horas)Salvadoran Air Force | 1969 | Honduras | FG-1D Corsair, Cavalier F-51D Mustang, C-47 (improvised bombers)y 2 más | |||
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Opened the war with dusk raids on Toncontín and other Honduran airfields, flew close support for the army’s advance and defended against Honduran raids. The FAS went to war outnumbered. Its own history counts about 25 pilots, five FG-1D Corsairs, five Cavalier F-51 Mustangs, six C-47s, a DC-4M, one B-26, five U-17s and T-41s, a T-34 and an AT-6, against more than 52 Honduran aircraft. At 18:10 on 14 July it struck first: with the reserve flying club’s twenty light aircraft fitted to drop mortar bombs, some 30 aircraft attacked Toncontín, where Honduras kept half its aircraft, and other fields. Honduras answered from 15 July with Corsair raids on Ilopango and on the oil installations at Acajutla and Cutuco; Wikipedia says El Salvador lost 20 per cent of its fuel reserves. The decisive air fighting came on 17 July, when Honduran F4U-5 Corsairs met Salvadoran Corsairs and Mustangs. The FAS records that Captain Douglas Varela Moreno was shot down near Nacaome and killed by an irregular Honduran group after capture, and that Captain Guillermo Reynaldo Cortez was mortally wounded near San José La Fuente, La Unión. The Honduran account, which the FAS history repeats from a 1998 interview, credits Captain Fernando Soto with three kills. The FAS defines its own aim as keeping the Honduran air force out of the area of operations, and says it achieved it despite the losses. The war is often called the last in which piston-engined fighters fought each other. Resultado OAS-brokered ceasefire on the night of 18 July 1969; Salvadoran troops withdrew by 2 August. Peace treaty signed in Lima on 30 October 1980; the International Court of Justice settled most of the border in 1992. Every kill and loss figure here is a claim by one side. The FAS and Honduran accounts agree on two Salvadoran pilots killed on 17 July, but Salvadoran claims against Honduran aircraft and the full count of aircraft lost on the ground were not confirmed independently in the sources checked. A Honduran dataset for this site is being prepared separately; this entry follows the published Honduran claim as given by English Wikipedia.
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| The Salvadoran Civil Warthe war against the FMLNSalvadoran Air Force | 1980–1992 | Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) | A-37B Dragonfly, UH-1H/M, Hughes 500MDy 5 más | |||
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Close air support, gunship and air-assault operations, reconnaissance and transport for the army against the FMLN guerrillas, with US equipment, training and advisers. The air war turned on the night the FMLN nearly destroyed the air force on the ground. In January 1982 ERP commandos set charges on aircraft parked at Ilopango; the FAS history says more than half the fleet was lost, and Washington replaced it within months with A-37Bs, O-2As, C-123Ks and Hueys, under a Congressional cap of 55 US advisers. Helicopter strength rose from 19 to 46 during 1984, and by 1987 the FAS had nine Hughes 500MD attack helicopters, 14 UH-1H gunships, 38 utility Hueys and six French light helicopters. Corum credits the air arm with making the army mobile, but notes that half the fleet or less was serviceable in 1985 and that only 70 pilots were available for 135 aircraft in 1987. Civilian casualties from the air were the most contested issue of the war: Tutela Legal counted 371 civilians killed by air attack in 1985 and Corum estimates about two thousand in all. The UN Truth Commission, which reported in 1993, recorded among its findings attacks from the air and ground on fleeing peasants at the Lempa in March 1981, helicopter fire at San Esteban Catarina in March 1982, and A-37 bombing at Tenancingo with some 100 civilians killed. The armed forces rejected the report; the FMLN’s own crimes, including the 1991 killing of surviving US crewmen of a helicopter it shot down, are also among the commission’s cases. Resultado Ended by the Chapultepec peace accords of 16 January 1992; the FMLN became a political party and the armed forces were reduced. Civilian casualty figures for the air war are estimates by Tutela Legal and by Corum; the Truth Commission’s findings are reported as findings, and the high command rejected them. The year of the Tenancingo bombing was not confirmed in the text checked and is omitted.
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| UN and multinational deploymentsMali and HaitiSalvadoran Air Force | 2022–2025 | MD 500E / MD 530F | ||||
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Supported Salvadoran contributions to UN peacekeeping with helicopters; deployed air force personnel to the Kenyan-led mission in Haiti in 2025. The MD 530Fs handed over by the United States on 27 October 2022 were paid for under the Global Peace Operations Initiative, explicitly to strengthen El Salvador’s capacity in UN missions in Mali and the Central African Republic, Zona Militar reported. English Wikipedia records that air force personnel deployed to Haiti in 2025 with the Multinational Security Support Mission, and that the US Embassy announced a further transfer of helicopters to El Salvador on 28 November 2025 in support of that mission. The years shown are those of the sourced events; when Salvadoran air force helicopters first deployed to Mali was not confirmed in the sources checked. Resultado Ongoing contributions; the United States has funded helicopters for these deployments. Deployment dates, aircraft numbers and the types transferred in November 2025 were not confirmed in a primary source reachable for this update (the US Embassy page refused access).
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Cada cifra, verificada
- Fuerza Aérea Salvadoreña: Historia de la Aviación de El Salvador (Douglas Alcides Cornejo Escobar)Official history: 1923 decree, first aircraft and pilots, 1930s–1950s purchases, the 1969 war from the Salvadoran side, Israeli jets 1973–1975, the 1982 Ilopango attack, 1980s deliveries, 1988 and 1994 reorganisations, 1998 T-35B purchase.
- James S. Corum, The Air War in El Salvador, Airpower Journal (1998), via DTIC67 aircraft and under 1,000 men in 1980; Ilopango 1982 losses; US deliveries 1982–1985; helicopter strength 1984 and 1987; A-37 strike rates; pilot shortage; Tutela Legal civilian casualty figure; SA-7s from 1989.
- United Nations: From Madness to Hope – Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador (S/25500, 15 March 1993), text hosted by Equipo NizkorTestimony from 2,000 primary sources on more than 7,000 victims and secondary sources on more than 20,000; findings including the air and ground attack on peasants crossing the Lempa on 17 March 1981, helicopter fire at San Esteban Catarina on 10 March 1982, A-37 bombing at Tenancingo, and the Atlacatl Battalion’s massacre at El Mozote.
- Zona Militar: Estados Unidos donó cuatro helicópteros MD530F a El Salvador (27 October 2022)Four MD530Fs handed over, funded by the Global Peace Operations Initiative to support UN deployments in Mali and the Central African Republic.
- The Washington Post: Rebels Damage Jets, Copters in El Salvador (Christopher Dickey, 28 January 1982)Contemporary figures from sources close to the military: at least 5 of 14 UH-1H and 3 of about 16 jets damaged; Defence Minister Gen. José Guillermo García called it a terrorist act.
Cifras verificadas el 1 de octubre de 2026. Back to the Salvadoran Air Force.