On the evening of 15 January we had tracked a strange event. A USAF Northrop Grumman RQ-4B (reg. 10-2045) that had taken off from Sigonella, after performing a mission over the Black Sea, had landed at the Greek base of Larisa instead of returning to the Sicilian base.
Several hypotheses were circulated about it (breakdown, emergency or simple deployment to another base).
What we do know is that Larisa AB is hosting retrofitting work for the USAF’s Reaper drones and thus, evidently, can also be used to host the larger Global Hawk drones.
It’s likely that this was a trial run (Larisa as an alternate stopover to Sigonella) but this morning the Global Hawk left Larisa bound for the Black Sea, confirming the fact that the Greek base can, if need be, become a viable base for USAF drones of all classes.