US Customs and Border Protection officials are looking to expand the use of remotely piloted surveillance aircraft to cover nearly all of California, allowing the unmanned aircraft to fly over the last major section of the Southwest border.
The agency’s Office of Air and Marine expects the Federal Aviation Administration this year to permit it to extend its unmanned aircraft operations into airspace just east of the San Diego metropolitan area, border agency spokeswoman Gina Gray said.
The border agency has a fleet of nine Predator B aircraft, including one deployed late last month to Arizona and another in October in Texas. Officials anticipate another aircraft will be deployed this summer in Florida. The aircraft, which can stay aloft for 20 hours, already patrol about 1,200 miles along the Southwest border from just east of El Centro in southeastern California to the Gulf of Mexico.
The agency flew more unmanned aircraft missions in the 2011 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, than any other year. More than 100 personnel are trained on the aircraft system, according to Department of Homeland Security records.
Customs and Border Protection Assistant Commissioner Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired U.S. Air Force major general who oversees the agency’s air and marine operations, including the unmanned aircraft program, testified in July 2010 that no other agency aircraft has the capabilities of the Predator B.
The unmanned aircraft operations “provide leading-edge capabilities to homeland security missions,” Kostelnik said.
The border agency’s unmanned aircraft programme, in operation since 2005, has four so-called Certificates of Authorization issued by the FAA to fly along the southern border. The border agency also has unmanned aircraft operating on the northern border.
Such approvals are required by the FAA for public-use aircraft – such as planes used by law enforcement, universities or land agencies – to fly in the national airspace. For Customs and Border Protection, the border-region airspace extends about 15 miles into the United States.
FAA spokesman Les Dorr Jr. declined to comment on the border agency’s proposed use of the airspace, citing agency policy to not discuss such matters because of privacy concerns or law enforcement-sensitive operations. As of September, there were 285 certificates issued to 85 users nationwide.
Source: California Watch