India Buys 4 P-8I Maritime Planes
India has inked a deal with the US defence and aerospace giant Boeing to procure four more Poseidon-8I (P-8I) long-range surveillance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft ( submarine hunter planes) worth $1 billion.
According to industry sources, the current deal is valued at around $1 billion, making it the biggest deal signed by the ministry so far in this financial year. The four aircraft will be delivered to the Navy within three years, sources said.
With this deal, the total value of defence deals signed with the US in the last one decade comes to around $15 billion.
The P-8I aircraft is a variant of the P-8A Poseidon aircraft that Boeing developed as a replacement for the US Navy’s ageing P-3 fleet and has been procured through a direct commercial sale.
The Harpoon missile was acquired under a separate agreement with the US government under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.
Armed with deadly Harpoon missiles, light-weight torpedoes and rockets among others, the Navy is extensively using the P-8I to keep a strict vigil on the Indian Ocean, which has seen numerous Chinese submarine forays, including the docking of a nuclear submarine in Sri Lanka.
The Navy has already purchased eight P-8Is for $2.1 billion and deployed some of these in Andaman and Nicobar islands near the busy shipping route passing through the Malacca Straits.
These P-8I aircraft have also been deployed by the Navy for the search and rescue operations to locate the missing AN-32 transport aircraft in the Bay of Bengal.
