Navy Decommissions India’s Oldest Maritime Surveillance Aircraft, Ilyushin-38 Sea Dragon

The Ilyushin-38 Sea Dragon Long Range Maritime Patrol airplane was taken out of service by the Indian Navy on Tuesday, after 46 years of service.

Chief of Naval Staff Adm. R. Hari Kumar and other important people were at the decommissioning event at INS Hansa in Dabolim, Goa.

On October 1, 1977, IL-38 planes were added to the naval squadron INAS 315 so that it could do long-range maritime reconnaissance and fight submarines from the air.

It was said by the Indian Navy, “With its unique capabilities, striking prowess, and extended reach covering the vast Indian Ocean region, the IL-38 SD has over the years proven itself to be a formidable force-multiplier.” The Squadron’s badge was a “Winged Stallion.”

During its last run of operations, the plane made it possible for indigenous Sahayak Air Droppable Containers to be added. These containers are very important for providing logistics support to units at sea and are also used to test indigenous torpedoes.

The plane flew over for the first and only time during the Republic Day fly-past.

The Indian Navy had the oldest marine surveillance plane, the IL-38. The planes were slowly replaced by the American P8i, which was made by Boeing. After 44 years of service, the first IL-38 was taken out of service last year.

With these planes, the Navy could do long-range maritime reconnaissance from the air, as well as long-range anti-submarine search and strike, anti-shipping strike, electronic signal intelligence, and search and rescue tasks that were far away.

There were other things that the plane was used for as well. In January 1978, it was used on board Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) gear to find the wreckage of the Air India Jumbo that had crashed off the coast of Mumbai soon after takeoff.