CN-235
ICAO CN35A Spanish-Indonesian transport that became the US Coast Guard's search aircraft. Live CN-235 and HC-144 positions.
Flying right now
Live · 30s
No CN-235 is transmitting ADS-B at the moment.
Military aircraft are not obliged to broadcast, so this happens regularly. The count refreshes every thirty seconds.
Airframe
- Manufacturer
- Airbus Defence and Space and Indonesian Aerospace
- Role
- Tactical airlift and maritime patrol
- Class
- L2T — Landplane, 2 turboprop engines
- Crew
- 2 to 3
- First flight
- 11 November 1983
- In service
- 1988
Operators airborne
Nothing of this type is up right now.
About the CN-235
The CN-235 came out of an unusual partnership between Spain's CASA and Indonesia's IPTN, both of whom still build it. It is a straightforward twin-turboprop freighter, and around thirty air forces use it that way.
Its most visible operator on this feed is the United States Coast Guard, which flies it as the HC-144 Ocean Sentry on maritime search and law enforcement patrols off the American coasts. Those sorties produce the long, low, methodical tracks over water that make the type easy to pick out.
Turkey, Spain, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco and South Korea are the other significant operators, and several fly maritime patrol versions with a search radar under the nose.
Callsign prefixes
- CGNR
- US Coast Guard aircraft, using the tail number
- AME
- Spanish Air and Space Force
- TUAF
- Turkish Air Force
How to recognise it
- —A short, stubby high-wing twin with four-bladed propellers and a rear ramp.
- —Distinctly tubbier than a C-295 — the fuselage looks too short for the tail.
- —Coast Guard aircraft carry a white and orange scheme and a belly radome.
Common questions
+ What is the HC-144 Ocean Sentry?
The US Coast Guard version of the CN-235, fitted for maritime search and law enforcement. It reports the same CN35 designator, so it appears on this page alongside military transports.
+ Is the CN-235 still in production?
Yes, in Indonesia. Airbus wound down Spanish production in favour of the larger C-295, but Indonesian Aerospace continues to build and export the type.
+ Why do CN-235s fly such slow, low patterns over water?
Those are search patterns. Maritime patrol and search and rescue work means covering an area systematically at low level, which produces the grid-like tracks visible on the globe.