Description

Hi all, I live in NJ under an EWR flight path. Occasionally I look at flightradar24, on Tuesday night (5/20) at approximately 11:45 PM EDT I noticed this military plane, a Boeing P-8A Poseidon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon), circling repeatedly over the central and northern part of the state with a total flight time of 5.5 hours by that point. The flight originated from Naval Air Station Oceana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Oceana) in Virginia Beach.

It seems this type of aircraft is used in a maritime patrol and reconnaissance capacity by the Navy.

Could anyone with experience possibly shed any light on this aircraft's capabilities - would it normally be flying over land if it is primarily used at sea? Considering the type of aircraft, the location, flight path/duration, and given the recent NJ incidents, it seemed to potentially be of interest.