Pakistan Navy on Tuesday inducted two US-made P3C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft, nearly a year after two similar planes were destroyed by heavily armed terrorists who stormed a strategic naval airbase in Karachi.
The aircraft, modified with modern avionics and sensors with US assistance being provided under the Foreign Military Funding programme, were inducted during a ceremony at the naval airbase in southern Sindh's provincial capital Karachi.
The Pakistan Navy is set to receive a total of six such aircraft from the US in batches of two each. The first batch was inducted into the navy in 2010, a naval statement said.
The modified aircraft have ‘extended surveillance capability’, which will help the navy maintain vigil in its ‘vital area of interest in the north Arabian Sea’, the statement said. The area is regarded as an important trade and energy corridor for the global economy and is home to ‘intense maritime activity, both legal and illegal, and thus warrants continuous guard’, the statement said.
Two P3C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft were destroyed and 10 security personnel were killed when a group of heavily armed terrorists stormed a naval airbase in Karachi in May last year.