At a press conference held at the Sarmiento Frigate Museum in the city of Buenos Aires, the Minister of Defense Jorge Taiana and Magnus Hansvold, Head of the Department of the Norwegian Defense Materiel Agency (NDMA) signed the agreement by which the Naval Aviation Command of the Argentine Navy will incorporate four Lockheed P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft (MPA – Maritime Patrol Aircraft) that were retired from the Forsvaret. The agreement includes three P-3C variant aircraft equipped to carry out maritime surveillance, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare (ASuW) missions, while one P-3N variant aircraft is configured for search and rescue (SAR) operations.
In brief statements, Minister Taiana confirmed that the four new aircraft will be joined by a P-3B already owned by the Argentine Navy, to make up a long-range maritime patrol force of 5 aircraft.
It was also informed that the equipment that the Norwegian aircraft will bring will be the same as the one they used to operate with for the Nordic country’s Navy, with the reasonable exception of NATO standard communications encryption equipment.
