This story is from April 19, 2016

Navy plane thwarts piracy bid in Arabian Sea

A naval Poseidon-8I long-range patrol aircraft managed to thwart a piracy attack on the high seas by flying over a merchant vessel which was being targeted by "a pirate mother ship and two skiffs" around 800 nautical miles from Mumbai last week.
Navy plane thwarts piracy bid in Arabian Sea
A naval Poseidon-8I long-range patrol aircraf. (Picture: Twitter/rajatpTOI)
NEW DELHI: A naval Poseidon-8I long-range patrol aircraft managed to thwart a piracy attack on the high seas by flying over a merchant vessel which was being targeted by "a pirate mother ship and two skiffs" around 800 nautical miles from Mumbai last week.
The P-8I, based at the naval air station INS Rajali at Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu, was on a routine surveillance mission over the Arabian Sea when it received distress calls from the merchant vessel, the Malta-flagged MV Sezai Selah, on the international Channel 16 distress radio on April 15.

"The pirate mother ship and the two high-speed skiffs had come quite close to the merchant vessel. The P-8I immediately responded and made warning transmissions over Channel 16 while flying over the pirate boats…they got frightened and altered course to leave MV Sezai Selah alone," said an official.
Piracy continues to be rampant off the east coast of Africa, with pirates often venturing deep into the Arabian Sea to hunt for targets like merchant vessels and oil tankers, despite international efforts to curb the menace. India, like some other countries, has been deploying warships in the Gulf of Aden for anti-piracy patrols continuously since 2008 to safely escort merchant ships of different nationalities through the troubled waters.
The Navy has also inducted eight P-8I aircraft under a $2.1 billion deal inked with US aviation major Boeing in 2009, with negotiations for another four such planes currently underway. Armed with deadly Harpoon Block-II missiles, MK-54 lightweight torpedoes, rockets and depth charges, these sensor and radar-packed aircraft act as India's "intelligent hawk-eyes" over the entire Indian Ocean Region.
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