>>The Navy jet dropped survival packs to the three men and relayed their location to the rescue center.
Ok, random question - looking at the pictures of a P-8A, I don't understand how it dropped anything while in flight, it's not like the pilot could chuck the packs out of their window. How does does that work? Are they equipped with a cargo door that can be opened in-flight?
Seems like it has a small bay for torpedoes and depth charges, a number of external hard points and a "free fall chute" for dropping things out of the plane [0]. I'm guessing the latter is what was used here. Here's a picture of it being used from inside the plane [1]
The P-8 is a submarine hunter, and has a small weapons bay and drop chutes that can be used to drop torpedos and sonobuoys while in flight. I imagine they used the same capability to drop the survival packs.
Ok, random question - looking at the pictures of a P-8A, I don't understand how it dropped anything while in flight, it's not like the pilot could chuck the packs out of their window. How does does that work? Are they equipped with a cargo door that can be opened in-flight?