1965–1971: a navy without aircraft, and an airliner pressed into service

Pakistan’s navy went to war twice without aircraft of its own. According to English Wikipedia’s history of the air arm, the Commander-in-Chief Vice Admiral Muzaffar Hassan tried to create a naval aviation branch after the 1965 war, but the air force chief, Air Marshal Abdur Rahim Khan, opposed it and American money for it never came. In December 1971 the gap was exposed: after Indian missile boats struck Karachi in Operation Trident, the navy leased a Fokker F27 from Pakistan International Airlines on 6 December, flown by civilian pilots who volunteered, to search the sea approaches. Wikipedia dates the air arm itself to 9 December 1971. The same account records a costly mistake: an officer in the aircraft, Commodore A. W. Bhombal, misidentified the Pakistani frigate PNS Zulfiqar as an enemy ship and a bombing attack on it was approved. The casualties of that incident were not confirmed in the sources reached for this page.

1974–1990: Sea Kings, Atlantics and a home at PNS Mehran

The real air arm was built after the war. Wikipedia gives 28 September 1974 for the transfer of Westland Sea Kings from the Royal Navy and the formation of No. 111 Squadron; the Sea King article counts six Mk 45s from 1975, able to carry Exocet anti-ship missiles in place of anti-submarine weapons. Three Breguet Atlantic long-range patrol aircraft were ordered from France in 1973 and taken over on 14 August 1976 by No. 29 Squadron; Alouette III helicopters followed in 1977 with No. 333 Squadron. The air arm’s first air station, PNS Mehran, was commissioned in Karachi on 26 September 1975, beside the air force’s base at Drigh Road (now Faisal). F27s returned as patrol aircraft with No. 27 Squadron in 1982, and Wikipedia credits Mehran with the first night flying capability of any Pakistani naval aviation base in 1990.

1999: the Atlantique shot down over the Rann of Kutch

The air arm’s worst day came weeks after the Kargil war. On 10 August 1999 an Atlantic of No. 29 Squadron with 16 men aboard was shot down near the border in the Rann of Kutch by an R-60 missile fired by an Indian Air Force MiG-21. The two governments still give different accounts. India says the aircraft had come within 10 km of the border in breach of a 1991 agreement, was about 10 km inside Indian airspace near Kori Creek and acted in a hostile manner. Pakistan says it was unarmed, on a training flight, in Pakistani airspace, and that the wreckage fell on its side. Pakistan took India to the International Court of Justice on 21 September 1999, claiming about US$60 million; on 21 June 2000 the court ruled that it had no jurisdiction. All 16 aboard were killed, the largest single loss of life in the air arm’s history.

1996–2012: the Orion era, and the night PNS Mehran was attacked

The P-3C Orion arrived in 1996, after the end of the Pressler Amendment sanctions, with No. 28 Squadron; Wikipedia’s Orion article says the aircraft flew extensively during the Kargil conflict and were kept armed through the 2001–2002 stand-off with India, and that one was lost with its whole crew. Then, on the night of 22 May 2011, militants got inside PNS Mehran. The Pakistani Taliban (TTP) claimed the raid as revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden three weeks earlier. Two P-3Cs were destroyed; the death toll is given as 10 by Al Jazeera, citing the base, and as 18 security personnel by Wikipedia. The siege lasted about 16 to 17 hours, and the gap between the six attackers the government counted and the 10 to 12 in a police report raised questions about inside help. The United States agreed in June 2011 to replace the lost Orions, and the last Atlantics were retired in September 2012.

2018–2026: turboprops, jets and drones

The fleet the navy built afterwards is mostly for watching the sea. Rheinland Air Service in Germany converted ATR 72 airliners into RAS 72 Sea Eagle patrol aircraft, delivering the first in June 2018 and the second in July 2019, and Wikipedia records a third by September 2022. The F27 was retired on 21 January 2020. On 2 September 2021 the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Muhammad Amjad Khan Niazi, inducted the first Sea Sultan at Mehran, a long-range maritime patrol conversion of the Embraer Lineage 1000 business jet meant to replace the P-3C; Naval News reported an initial contract for three, while Wikipedia says ten were ordered. Chinese Z-9EC helicopters have flown from the navy’s F-22P frigates since 2006, and No. 47 Squadron flies GIDS Uqab drones. A second air station, PNS Siddiq at Turbat in Balochistan, was commissioned on 3 September 2014.

What the air arm is, and what it is not

The air arm is small, and much of it is not public. Wikipedia gives it about 5,000 people and 85 aircraft, figures not confirmed by the navy; individual type counts are not published, and the navy’s own website could not be reached for this page. It has no fighters: maritime strike from the air is a Pakistan Air Force task. Its record in war is thin and contested. In the May 2025 conflict no role for naval aircraft was published by Pakistan, while India’s defence minister claimed in May 2026 that the Indian Navy had kept the whole Pakistan Navy in port. In April 2026 the navy announced a live firing of the Taimoor air-launched cruise missile but declined to say which aircraft fired it. What is clear is the direction: from ageing Orions to business-jet patrol aircraft and drones, built around commercial airframes rather than combat types.

Текущий флот и заказы

Эмбраер, Аэрокосмическая, АТР, Фельдшер скорой помощи Пенцберг, GIDS, Харбин, Hawker Beechcraft, Локхид, Вестленд

Бывший флот

Бреге, Фоккер