OFF THE WIRE
Associated Press
|
by Ben Fox
ABOARD THE HIGH SPEED VESSEL SWIFT - Drug smugglers who race across
the Caribbean in speedboats will typically jettison their cargo when
spotted by surveillance aircraft, hoping any chance of prosecuting them
will vanish with the drugs sinking to the bottom of the sea.
That may be a less winning tactic in the future. The U.S. Navy on
Friday began testing two new aerial tools, borrowed from the
battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, that officials say will make it
easier to detect, track and videotape drug smugglers in action.
One of the devices on display aboard the High Speed Vessel Swift is a
large, white balloon-like craft known as an aerostat, which is tethered
up to 2,000 feet (600 meters) above the ship's stern. The other tool on
board for tests in the Florida Straits is a type of drone that can be
launched by hand from the deck.
Together, they expand the ability of the Navy and Coast Guard
personnel on board to see what's beyond their horizon, according to
officials from both military branches and the contractors hoping to sell
the devices to the U.S. government.
The devices should allow authorities to detect and monitor suspected
drug shipments from afar for longer sustained periods, giving them a
better chance of stopping the smugglers. They also should allow them to
make continuous videotapes that can be used in prosecutions.
"Being able to see them and watch what they are doing even before we
get there is going to give us an edge," said Chief Chris Sinclair,
assistant officer in charge of a law enforcement detachment on board the
Swift, a private vessel leased to the Navy that is about to begin a
monthlong deployment to the southwestern Caribbean, tracking the busy
smuggling routes off Colombia and Honduras.
Crews practiced launching and operating both systems before a small
contingent of media on board the Swift, managing to bring back video of
vessels participating in a mock surveillance mission as well as radar
and video images of the fishing charters and sailboats that dot the
choppy seas separating Cuba from the U.S. mainland.
The drone, officially a Puma All Environment unmanned aircraft system
from Aerovironment Inc. of Simi Valley, California, splashed into the
water on one landing and had to be retrieved. On the second round, it
clacked noisily but intact on the shifting deck of the 321-foot ship.
Rear Adm. Sinclair Harris, commander of the Navy's 4th Fleet, said the
devices are necessary at a time when the service is making a transition
to smaller, faster ships amid budget cuts.
The aerostat, formally the Aerostar TIF-25K and made by a division of
Raven Industries Inc. of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is filled with
helium. It's an old technology, models of which have been used for
decades, but it's packed with cameras and sensors that expand the ship's
radar capability from about 5 miles (8 kms) to about 50 miles. That can
help teams in an on-board control center to identify larger ships,
which now would appear as just dots on the horizon, from as far as 15
miles away.
The Puma, meanwhile, can be sent out to inspect a vessel flagged by
the larger aerostat and give a "God's eye view," of what's happening on
board, a job usually handled by a plane or helicopter, said Craig
Benson, director of business development for the company.
Both the aerostat and the drone have been used widely by the U.S.
government for overseas actions, but Harris and others aboard the Swift
said neither has been used before by the Navy to conduct counter-drug
operations.
Unmanned aerial devices, however, are not new to the drug fight. U.S.
Customs and Border Protection operates 10 Predator drones, including
two based in Cape Canaveral, Florida, that patrol a wide swathe of the
Caribbean through the Bahamas and down to south of Puerto Rico. It
deployed one to the Dominican Republic last year for six weeks and has
considered using one in Honduras. The others are used along the northern
and southern borders of the United States.
The U.S. military has long been deeply involved in counter-drug
operations in the Southern Hemisphere, coordinated by a multi-agency
task force based in Key West, Florida. Navy ships and Air Force jets use
their radar to track and run down smugglers, though for legal reasons
the actual arrests are carried out by the Coast Guard, civilian agencies
or officials from other countries.
In March, the military said it would reduce patrols and sorties in
Latin America and the Caribbean because of the automatic spending cuts
imposed by Congress, another argument for increased use of aerial
surveillance devices like the aerostat and drone, officials said.
Representatives on the Swift from both contractors declined to say
what their systems cost. But they said each can be run at a fraction of
the cost of the fixed-wing planes or helicopters usually dispatched to
check out suspected smugglers.
