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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]

[0] http://www.b737.org.uk/mma.htm

[1] https://picryl.com/media/aircrewman-assigned-to-patrol-squad...

Dropping things is one of the primary purposes of the P-8A. They drop sonar buoys for submarine warfare.

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.

There’s a pic of it here: https://www.twz.com/40859/the-case-for-stripping-the-p-8-pos...

(I have no opinion or endorsement of the other content in that site, just merely was looking for a picture)

That's very cool, thanks for answering!