Slovakia’s armed forces will have two new transport aircraft of the C-27J SPARTAN type. The Slovak Security Council approved this purchase and then it gained the subsequent approval of the Cabinet of Robert Fico. The purchase contract should be signed next week with an Italian company being expected to deliver the first airplane in 2016 and second in 2017.
The head of the defence department specified that this is a medium-sized propeller-driven transport aircraft for the transport of personnel and material, while it could be also used to extinguish forest fires. The price for which the planes were purchased has not been made public. The purchase of Spartan airplanes is the completion of a process that started in 2008 after the 24-AN plane crash of the Slovak armed forces near a Hungarian village in January 2006, which killed 41 soldiers who were returning from a mission in Kosovo. The Defence minister indicated that further modernisation projects in the military will include the purchase of multi-purpose helicopters.
