Drug smugglers who race across the Caribbean in speedboats 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 US Navy on Friday began testing two new aerial tools, borrowed from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, that officials say could 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 about 600m 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 navy and US Coast Guard personnel to see what is beyond their horizon, according to officials from both military branches and the contractors hoping to sell the devices to the US 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 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 month-long 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 news 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 US mainland.
The drone, officially a Puma All Environment unmanned aircraft system from Aerovironment 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 100m ship. Rear Admiral Sinclair Harris, commander of the navy’s Fourth 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 of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is filled with helium. It is an old technology, models of which have been used for decades, but it is packed with cameras and sensors that expand the ship’s radar capability from about 8km to about 80km. 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 25km away.
Meanwhile, the Puma 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 US 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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS