Argentina Is Going to Restore Promised to Ukraine Super Etendard Aircraft
In early June 2024, it became known that Argentina intended to transfer five Super Etendard Modernise aircraft to Ukraine. They were decommissioned in 2023 due to ejection seat malfunctions.
Argentina purchased these aircraft from France in 2019 for €12.5 million, but they were never put into operation due to technical problems with the ejection seats. It was impossible to fix them because of the UK’s embargo on military technology of British origin for the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic.
It is known that Argentina was the only owner of such aircraft, as France had decommissioned its Super Etendard Modernise back in 2016. At that time, there was an opportunity to sell all 54 available aircraft of this type to Argentina, but in the end, only five were sold.
This detail complicated the question of the feasibility of transferring such aircraft from Argentina to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Even if there was no embargo factor and it was quite possible to restore the ejection seats, the question would arise: how to maintain the technical readiness of Super Etendard Modernise in the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
It should be noted that such a specific aircraft in the Ukrainian aviation would only create an additional burden on the infrastructure.
However, these aircraft have a rather interesting set of onboard equipment: Anemone radar with detection range of maritime targets up to 200 km, an onboard electronic warfare system, an updated navigation system and an optical targeting station for the use of the high-precision weapon Damocles.
Two months later, this story took a rather interesting turn. According to Infodefensa, the Argentine Navy decided to restore and put into service these Super Etendard Modernise on its own, which the country wanted to transfer to Ukraine.
The Chief of the General Staff of the Argentine Navy, Counter Admiral Carlos Maria Allievi, stated that it is possible to restore the technical readiness of these aircraft and conduct a test flight of one of them. So it can be assumed that the Argentines have found technical solutions to repair the ejection seats bypassing the British embargo.
Earlier War Ukraine-Russia News Hub reported that upgrading Ukrainian MiG-29s would enhance Ukraine’s use of its own existing aircraft.