NATO skies: Intensified aerial surveillance over Poland
On April 2, numerous airplanes appeared over Poland and neighbouring countries, tasked with monitoring the situation beyond NATO's eastern borders. In addition to reconnaissance aircraft, a NATO flying tanker was also circling the central part of the country. Who sent their planes over Poland?
Polish AWACS, specifically two Saab 340 AEW aircraft purchased from Sweden, achieved operational readiness in November 2024. Since then, they have regularly appeared over Poland, carrying out multi-hour flights. One of these aircraft—Saab 340 with the call sign Thunder1—was circling in the area of Lublin and Chełm.
The airplane's unusual route was noteworthy. The Saab 340 AEW is equipped with an Erieye radar, which, due to its design, has a blind spot in the front and rear. For this reason, aircraft of this type generally conduct patrols along borders on a north-south route.
This time, the Polish AWACS's route was latitudinal, meaning that areas to the north and south of the aircraft were under constant surveillance.
American plane with ARTEMIS system
Part of the route of the American Bombardier Challenger 650 ARTEMIS plane also passed over Poland. This is a U.S. Army reconnaissance aircraft equipped with the ARTEMIS system (Airborne Reconnaissance and Targeting Multi-Mission Intelligence System). The American plane was circling around the Kaliningrad Oblast.
ARTEMIS is a new system introduced into service in 2019, integrating ISR functions (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), SIGINT (Signals Intelligence), and ELINT (Electronic Intelligence, which is part of SIGINT).
NATO flying tanker
In the depths of Polish airspace, characteristic wide ovals between Gniezno and Toruń were traced in the sky by a NATO flying tanker—an Airbus A330 MRTT. This is a large, versatile machine (MRTT - Multi-Role Tanker Transport), which can serve as a transport aircraft or—as was most likely the case here—a flying tanker.
This aircraft provides support, among other things, for military jets, which—although generally invisible in publicly available flight tracking services—regularly patrol over Poland.
NATO aerial reconnaissance
At the same time, a Swedish reconnaissance aircraft, Gulfstream IV (SVF680), was patrolling over Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, an American RC-135V Rivet Joint reconnaissance plane (JAKE17) was en route over the Black Sea, and another Bombardier Challenger 650 ARTEMIS was patrolling along the eastern border of Romania. A Latvian Mi-17 helicopter also conducted a patrol along the border with Russia.
