1975–1989: independence, Ali Soilihi and Bob Denard’s guard

The Comoros declared independence from France on 6 July 1975 by a unilateral resolution of the Comorian parliament, according to English Wikipedia, while Mayotte stayed French. In January 1976 President Said Mohamed Jaffar was ousted in favour of his Minister of Defence, Ali Soilihi. On 13 May 1978 the French mercenary Bob Denard, “once again commissioned by the French intelligence service (SDECE)” in Wikipedia’s words, overthrew Soilihi, and a Presidential Guard became the regime’s core force. That arrangement ended in 1989 when President Abdallah was shot dead in his office after ordering the guard to disarm the armed forces. Nothing in the sources checked describes a military flying unit in these years; the state’s armed force was a small ground army.

1990–1999: from FCD to AND, and an army that fought back

French Wikipedia traces the lineage: the Force armée comorienne (FAC) became the Force comorienne de défense (FCD) in 1990, and in 1996 the FCD was merged with the national gendarmerie and the training school into the Armée nationale de développement (AND), the “army of national development”. The same article counts nineteen coups or alleged attempts between independence and 2001. On 26 September 1992 the army put down a mutiny; in 1995 Bob Denard came back with about thirty men, the army fought them for a day, and France intervened with paratroopers and forced him to surrender. In 1997 Anjouan (Ndzwani) and Mohéli (Mwali) declared secession, and in April 1999 the army chief of staff, Colonel Azali Assoumani, took power in a bloodless coup, per English Wikipedia.

Aircraft on paper: what the lists say

Whether the Comoros has an air arm at all is a question of lists. English Wikipedia names a “Comorian Air Force” among the seven components of the AND, beside the ground force, gendarmerie, school, presidential guard, health service and coast guard, but its aircraft table is empty, with the note that the last comprehensive inventory came from Aviation Week & Space Technology in 2007. French Wikipedia lists six SIAI-Marchetti SF.260s, a Cessna 402, two Let L-410 Turbolets, an AS350 Écureuil and two Mil Mi-14 helicopters “of Ukrainian origin delivered in February 2008”, without a source for the line. No second source checked for this page corroborates any of them, and none shows any of them flying today.

2008: Anjouan, flown in by others

The country’s best-known military operation of the century was flown in by others. On 25 March 2008 Comorian and African Union troops — about 500 from Tanzania and 750 from Sudan, with Senegal, and with logistical help from Libya, France and the United States — landed on Anjouan in Operation Democracy in Comoros and seized the rebel-held island, per English Wikipedia. The French military had airlifted about 300 Tanzanian troops and 30 tonnes of freight to Grande Comore between 14 and 16 March. The government reported no deaths among its forces; three were killed on the Anjouan side. No source checked records a Comorian aircraft in the operation, though French Wikipedia dates the Mi-14 delivery to the month before it.

2024–2026: an air arm nobody can count

In January 2024 Azali Assoumani was re-elected in a disputed vote; the Supreme Court validated 57.2 per cent, and on 17 and 18 January violent protests in Moroni led to a curfew, with at least one person killed, according to English Wikipedia. Under the defence agreement with France, Wikipedia says, France provides naval protection, training and air surveillance. The honest summary for 2026 is short: the AND exists, a coast guard was formally created in May 2012, and an air component appears on organisation lists, but no source checked for this page — official, press or encyclopedic — shows a Comorian military aircraft in service, a pilot, a unit or a base. If the service has aircraft, they are not published.

Antigua flota

Cessna, Eurocóptero, Dejen que Kunovice, Mil, SIAI-Marchetti