Norway Receives First Delivery of Boeing P-8A Maritime Patrol Aircraft

Boeing has completed the delivery of Norway’s first of five P-8A Poseidon aircraft developed for long-range anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare missions as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations.

The Poseidon will be deployed by the Royal Norwegian Air Force from the Evenes Air Station and will conduct maritime patrols across the Nordic country’s northern region, the company said Thursday.

P-8A, together with four of the same aircraft arriving in 2022, will replace the existing Norwegian fleet of six Lockheed Martin-made P-3 Orion turboprop aircraft and two Dassault Falcon 20 jets.

“Norway joins seven other global customers that have selected or already operate the P-8,” said Stu Vorobil, vice president and program manager of P-8 programs at Boeing.

The delivery comes four years after Boeing and the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency agreed to the purchase of five Poseidons in 2017 and two years before the aircraft’s scheduled deployment in 2023.

It marked Boeing’s 142nd delivery of such aircraft to its global customers.