For the seventh time the Italian flag was hoisted at the Keflavik air base, where 4 F-35A aircraft of the 32nd Wing of the Italian Air Force landed in recent days to support Iceland’s air defense capability.
This officially concludes the redeployment activities of the Italian contingent that will take part in the NATO Operation of Air Policing Northern Lightning III which will see engaged, for the next sixty days or so, the men and women of the Air Task Force under the command of Colonel Gianmarco Di Loreto.
The objective of the mission is to preserve the integrity of NATO’s airspace in peacetime by strengthening the surveillance of the skies of Iceland, which does not have its own air defense capabilities, and conducting, in the meantime, joint training activities with the Icelandic Coast Guard and with NATO assets possibly redeployed on the Icelandic grounds.
The Air Task Force, directly reporting to coVI (Joint Summit Operational Command), is composed, in fact, in addition to the Flight Group and the technical and logistical personnel coming from the various Departments of the Armed Force, also by a team of Air Defense controllers who, in collaboration with the Icelandic Coast Guard, will ensure surveillance and possibly interception, by means of F-35As on alert, of aircraft that are not identified or pose a potential threat.
The redeployment of the TFA Northern Lightning III was possible thanks to an important teamwork that involved numerous Departments of the Air Force: the transport of personnel and material was possible thanks to the use of KC-767A aircraft of the 14th Wing of Pratica di Mare and C-130J of the 46th Air Brigade of Pisa which also guaranteed, respectively, also the in-flight refueling and the oceanic SAR (Search and Rescue) capacity during the transfer of F-35A aircraft from the Amendola base to that of Keflavik.
Several “contact teams”, made up of personnel from the various bodies of the Armed Forces, who have put in place all the technical and logistical preparations necessary for the operation of the TFA. In particular, the info-structure and systems necessary for the telecommunications sector were guaranteed by the 3rd Division of the Logistics Command.