South Korea completes P-8A Poseidon fleet

THE Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) has completed the acquisition of six Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) on July 4. At a delivery ceremony at Pohang’s Naval Air Command attended by the country’s minister of defence Shin Won-sik, Chief of Naval Operations Adm Yang Yong-mo and other top brass, the aircraft were designated tail numbers 921, 922, 923, 925, 926 and 927.

Previously, the first batch of three P-8As arrived in Pohang on June 19 with the latest arriving on June 30, almost six years after ordering the aircraft in a USD1.7 billion government-to-government Foreign Military Sale (FMS) programme.

The P-8A can conduct several missions, namely anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASuW), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations (ISR) and can be armed with anti-ship guided missiles and torpedoes in addition to 120 sonobuoys that are capable of detecting, identifying and tracking enemy submarines.-shp/adj/dl (Pix:ROKN)