Throughout Hennessey-Niland’s tour of the P-8A Poseidon plane’s flight station, mission crew work stations, he spoke with the Sailors in regards to the significance of getting the P-8A platform working in Oceania.
“What this explicit plane does suits completely with the wants of a companion like Palau,” mentioned Hennessey-Niland. “With a big unique financial zone (EEZ), Palau has had points with incursions by way of analysis vessels and unlawful, unregulated, and unreported fishing.”
Whereas working out of Palau, VP-8’s aircrew carried out missions to supply intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) on vessels of curiosity and unlawful, unregulated, and unreported fishing inside Palau’s unique financial zone.
“The very first thing is being current,” mentioned Hennessey-Niland. “We’ve to again up our dedication with functionality. Having one in every of our superior platforms just like the P-8 working out of Palau is without doubt one of the finest examples of us displaying up and assembly our tasks for the protection and safety of Palau.”
Oceania is a essential area to each international locations who’re mutually invested and dedicated to defending and preserving the encircling water for the advantage of the Palauan individuals.
“The P-8A’s prolonged vary and superior ISR suite makes it a extremely succesful platform for patrolling the big Palauan EEZ,” mentioned Lt. Benjamin Montgomery, VP-8’s detachment’s officer in cost. “Palau was very supportive in permitting us to deliver our plane into the nation and we had been very happy to help in in search of vessels of curiosity.”
The Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau at present have Compacts of Free Affiliation (COFA) with the USA, which permits the U.S. navy to function of their borders and veto international militaries doing the identical.
“We’ve had numerous workouts lately in Palau,” mentioned Hennessey-Niland. “We simply concluded Valiant Defend, which was one of many largest joint workouts ever right here within the second island chain. We had been capable of show the Navy’s air functionality built-in with the Marine Corps working the air discipline.”
Maritime area consciousness is a crucial matter of safety with main financial and navy implications for international locations within the Indo-Pacific area.
“Having a platform just like the P-8 aiding with the maritime area consciousness is without doubt one of the finest examples of a partnership I can consider between the USA and Palau,” mentioned Hennessey-Niland. “Getting the U.S. Navy to Palau is essential to conserving the peace and demonstrating our resolve and proving that we will sail and fly anyplace that’s legally allowed.”
The “Preventing Tigers” of VP-8 are primarily based out of Naval Air Station Jacksonville and are at present working from Naval Air Facility Misawa in Misawa, Japan. The squadron conducts maritime patrol and reconnaissance in addition to theater outreach operations as a part of a rotational deployment to the U.S. seventh Fleet space of operations.
