Leonardo to supply ATR 72M aircraft and training to Italian Customs Police

Leonardo won a €44 – million contract to supply an ATR 72MP aircraft to the Italian Customs Police, along with associated logistics support and training services. The aircraft will be used for the Italian Customs Police’s airborne and naval mission and surveillance activities. Leonardo says it will make Customs Police the only law enforcement agency in Italy able to provide full surveillance coverage.

The ATR 72MP can perform numerous roles including maritime patrol; searching for and identifying surface vessels; search & rescue (SAR) missions; the prevention of narcotics-trafficking, piracy and smuggling; territorial water security and the monitoring-of and intervention-in ecological disasters. The aircraft can transmit and receive real-time information to and from ground-based command and control centers and airborne/maritime platforms. It can use on-board sensors to detect and identify sensitive targets, while maintaining a position of low visibility when necessary and the design features crew ergonomics that help maintain the efficiency and effectiveness of operators during lengthy missions.

The ATR 72MP is already in service with the Italian Air Force, called the P-72A, and is equipped with Leonardo’s Airborne Tactical Observation and Surveillance modular mission system (ATOS) that manages the aircraft’s wide spectrum of sensors that take information and present it in a tactical picture for operators.

The first delivery will take place in 2019.