US to hand three King Air surveillance aircraft to Philippine Coast Guard

The United States will give the Philippine Coast Guard three King Air turboprop aircraft set up for maritime domain awareness, the Pentagon announced on September 28, 2026.

Technology Service Corp., a Virginia-based company, won a $39 million contract to buy the aircraft and install intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance kits on King Air 350 Extended Range airframes, according to USNI News. Two of the three will carry the ISR hardware and software. The contract also includes instruction on the surveillance systems and on flying the aircraft.

The handover was agreed in February 2026, after a meeting between US Defense Department Undersecretary John Noh and Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gavan.

The transfer forms part of a wider US effort to build up the Philippines' intelligence-gathering capacity as tensions with China persist over disputed features in the South China Sea. Washington has already provided unmanned surface vessels and patrol boats that Philippine forces have used to monitor Chinese activity.

Earlier deliveries included several Cessna aircraft fitted with ISR kits for the Philippine Air Force. Those turboprops were first handed over in the 2010s for counterinsurgency work and have since been moved to maritime patrol duties over the South China Sea.

According to USNI News, the South China Sea dispute, along with concern that a Taiwan contingency could spread into the Luzon Strait, is now pushing Manila to modernise its defence capabilities.

The US-supplied turboprops have repeatedly drawn responses from the Chinese military near Scarborough Shoal. Reports say Chinese J-16 and JL-10 fighters, backed by a KJ-500 airborne early warning aircraft, recently tracked a Philippine turboprop over the shoal.