Also this morning, a USNavy Lockheed EP-3E ‘Aries II’ (reg. 159887) left Souda Bay AB to carry out a new surveillance mission.
This time, however, the final destination was not the Black Sea but the central Mediterranean, specifically the stretch of coast off Tripoli.
The aircraft orbited for about an hour off the Libyan capital with the ADS-B transponder switched on.
These types of missions are carried out regularly but are rarely performed with the ADS-B transponder switched on.