Patrolling central Mediterranean Sea

This morning, an Italian Air Force ATR P-72A (reg. MM62280) carried out a patrol mission over the central Mediterranean.
This is a routine mission regularly conducted to monitor maritime traffic, operating under the Italian flag as well as NATO or EU mandates.

It is worth noting that part of this mission was conducted without ADS-B tracking, likely due to a combination of low altitude—the aircraft descended below 11,000 feet—and limited coverage from ground-based receivers.

In the untracked segment of the flight path, the Russian ship Sparta was also located. This is the same vessel we previously reported (link to the post) as navigating in the area following an unexpected change in course.