Navy to retire Russian Tu-142 fleet, American aircraft take on role

The aircraft has been one of the world's most iconic and recognisable submarine hunters

For almost three decades, the Indian Navy’s giant, four-engine Tupolev-142MK-E, has been the most feared aerial predator in the Indian Ocean, the stuff of nightmares for Pakistani submarine crews.

On Wednesday, the 29-year era of the Tu-142 will draw to a close, when the 312nd Indian Navy Aviation Squadron (INAS - 312) at INS Rajali, Arrakonam in Tamil Nadu, retires these “long range maritime reconnaissance” (LRMR) aircraft. 

In its place, the job of searching out and destroying enemy submarines in the waters off India’s coast will fall to the navy’s new fleet of a dozen Boeing P-8I aircraft.

In an indicator of shifting