Four aircraft Euro Fighter of the Italian Air Force took off on Tuesday from the military airport of Grosseto for the airport of Keflavik, in Iceland, to kick off the NATO Interim Air Policing operation, called "Northern Stork". The operation aims to preserve the integrity of NATO airspace, strengthening the surveillance activity of the skies of Iceland, which does not have autonomous capabilities and structures for air defense. Italy contributes, with periodic shifts together with the other countries of the Alliance, to this NATO mission.
The task of the Italian assets will be to guarantee the surveillance service of the Icelandic airspace until the beginning of October, while carrying out joint training with the local coast guard personnel.
"The redeployment in Iceland is a mission, operational and training at the same time, which concretizes the spirit of solidarity among the members of the Atlantic Alliance and also allows the maintenance and testing of standardized security procedures in NATO"Said General Claudio Graziano, Chief of the Defense Staff, adding that"this joint air defense in the Icelandic sector is a clear example of rational management and sharing of available resources among the various NATO partners".
The activity of Air Policing has been conducted since peacetime and consists in the continuous surveillance of the integrity of NATO's airspace as well as in the identification of any violations of its integrity, before which appropriate counter actions must be taken, such as, for example, the rapid take-off of interceptor fighter aircraft, which in technical terms is called scramble.
Air Policing is carried out within the area of responsibility of the NATO Allied Command Operation (ACO) based in Brussels and is coordinated by the Ramstein Air Command (GER).
