As part of one of its latest naval aviation deployments, The Chilean Navy confirmed the participation and deployment of its P-3 Orion aircraft to monitor fishing vessels east of Rapa Nui.. The focus of the dispatch of surveillance and patrol aircraft is the activity of the aforementioned ships above the “Motu Motiro Hiva” marine park.
The activities of the P-3 Orion, belonging to the VP-1 maritime aeroexploration group of Naval Aviation, took place between September 5 and 7, within the framework of the Oceanic Fisheries Control Operation (OFPO) “Mata Hui 3”.
The P-3 Orion is an aircraft designed in the 60’s by the American company Lockheed Martin and that fulfills, stated Captain Richter, with many capabilities. “It is an aircraft that performs – in times of war – mainly the tasks of submarine warfare and in peacetime aeromaritime exploration.” added the Captain.
Throughout the three-day event, the Chilean Navy’s P-3s covered a total of 1,656,600 square miles in 19 hours of flight time., at a location 700 nautical miles east of Rapa Nui. That is, almost 1,300 kilometers to the continent from the territory of the island. In total, a fleet of 23 foreign fishing vessels were identified but outside the Chilean Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
The Chilean Navy promotes the creation of this type of operations to control the marine coast of the country. So expressed in the words of the Commander in Chief of the Navy, Admiral Juan Andrés De la Maza, who indicated that “makes all the institutional means available to the State to implement the tasks that traditionally correspond to us according to the Mission Areas and especially the most important Mission Area that the Navy has, which is Territorial Integrity, that is, the security of our territory. . All institutional means, to their greatness, contribute to the fulfillment of other Mission Areas“.
