Another “unusual” mission of a US Navy Poseidon

A new missioninvolving a USN Boeing P-8A near Sicily. This morning, around 10:30 CET, a USN Poseidon took off from Souda Bay Air Base and is currently conducting a series of orbits (at approximately 10,000 feet) off the eastern coast of Sicily, in the Ionian Sea.

This mission is part of a broader series of similar operations carried out by American and Italian aircraft in the Tyrrhenian Sea over the past week. The most recent of these missions took place yesterday in the Sicilian Channel.

While the exact purpose of these missions remains unclear, as we have speculated previously, they may be focused on monitoring the movements of “suspicious” naval assets. The primary suspect is the Russian spy ship Yantar, which is currently operating in the western Mediterranean.