[2] Thanks to the influx of newly trained native pilots and ground personnel, the FAIM grew significantly in the early 1970s.

However, these aircraft were vulnerable to ground fire, and on 29 December a Defender was shot down by a 9K32 Strela-2 MANPADS, with the whole crew being killed.

In early February of the same year, Defenders helped evacuate dozens of wounded soldiers from the army garrison of Tichlé, which had withstood a Polisario attack.

[7] The war against the Polisario Front was a huge strain on the Mauritanian national budget, and it caused more and more discontent in the country, including inside of its armed forces.

While the war with the Polisario continued, on 27 May 1979 the junta's strongman Ahmed Ould Bouceif died in the crash of the FAIM DHC-5D that was bringing him to an ECOWAS summit in Dakar, together with the other 11 occupants.

The new Mauritanian government then decided to stop the country's involvement in Western Sahara, and a peace treaty between Mauritania and the Polisario Front was signed in August.

[9] More recent procurements have been from China in the form of the Harbin Y-12 II turboprop transports were delivered in September 1995, one crashed in April 1996.