Border Security

[Flying Pig]

Good article.  Although not a new technique, he brings up some good discussion about ultralights being intercepted, and talks about the legalities of shooting them down, just like if it were a Cessna or a Boeing headed to a sensitive area.



Mexican marijuana smugglers turn to ultralight aircraft


BY TIM JOHNSON

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

SONOYTA, Mexico -- Several times a week, drug smugglers somewhere along Mexico's border with the United States strap themselves into low-flying ultralight aircraft and take off with loads of marijuana.
They usually fly at night with no lights and often, they're guided only by the dim screen of a handheld satellite navigation tool, looking for a precise spot in the desert.
The smugglers generally don't land. They've modified the ultralight aircraft with drop baskets that can hold 150 to 250 pounds of marijuana wrapped in brick-sized units and covered in plastic. They move a lever, and the bricks fall to the desert for ground crews to pick up and smuggle onward across the country.
It's a perilous tactic, and pilots can break limbs or die in crashes.
"It's a fairly risky endeavor for them to try to do this. ... They do fly close to the ground, which can be dangerous because of power lines," said Steve Cribby, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
Ultralight aircraft evolved out of hang gliders, and the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't classify them as "aircraft." That legal loophole allows dopers to bring in sizable loads of marijuana and get lighter jail terms than if they'd used a car or small airplane.
"It's a pretty new phenomenon," said Andrew S. Gordon, of the general counsel's office at the Department of Homeland Security.
A Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, Gabrielle Giffords, proposed last month to close that loophole with an Ultralight Smuggling Prevention Act. Giffords called ultralights "the latest threat to border security."
Giffords said the Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine Operation Center in Riverside, Calif., detected "193 suspected incursions and 135 confirmed incursions by ultralights from Oct. 1, 2009 through April 15th of this year."
Arizona has become a gateway for Mexican marijuana. Last year, law enforcement agents seized about 545 metric tons of marijuana in the Tucson sector, which has a 262-mile border with Mexico, more than all other sectors combined.
On May 16, the North American Aerospace Defense Command scrambled two F-16 jet fighters to intercept an ultralight aircraft crossing into Arizona and followed it for about 30 minutes before it flew back into Mexico.
Ultralights have fabric wings attached to aluminum tubing. Small two-stroke engines that sound much like a whining lawn mower, power rear propellers. The pilots sit in sling seats that give the vehicles the appearance of winged tricycles.
"I hate to say it, but those things are very stealthy aircraft," said Sgt. Rick Pearson of the air support unit in the sheriff's office of Pima County, Ariz. "They don't have much of a reflective character (to catch radar signals)."
When Mexican smugglers began using small airplanes in the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. government responded by deploying six Aerostat surveillance blimps to strategic border locations, thwarting air smuggling for many years.
But the Aerostats, tethered by 15,000-foot cables, return to their ground pads at night to avoid snaring legal aircraft that might get entangled in the cables.
To avoid ground-based radar at night, the ultralights generally fly low, tracing routes over illuminated highways, although authorities have tracked them flying at altitudes of 12,000 feet.
Giffords said some of the smugglers' aircraft have been detected "flying up to 200 miles into our country from Mexico."

Both humanitarian concerns and legal considerations prevent law enforcement from firing on the ultralights when they spot them.
"There are rules on deadly force," Gordon said, noting that the ultralight pilots wouldn't survive a strafing. "If you shoot them, you're going to kill them."
Such legal considerations give the traffickers leeway.
"They don't care about flying with their lights on. They don't care about flying at the proper designated altitudes for aircraft. They don't care about flying through controlled air spaces," Pearson said.
H.L. Cooper, a flight instructor for ultralights in the Tucson area, said he's regularly approached by people whom he presumes are smugglers.
"The first thing out of their mouth is, 'How much weight can it carry?' " Cooper said.
Drug gangs in Mexico care little about pilot training.
"They are getting some 'gofer' out there to jump on these things, and then it's, 'Hasta la vista, baby,' " Cooper said.
The vehicles are usually overloaded, making them unstable. "If you hit some turbulence, the aircraft can start to break apart," he said.
In one of the earliest known incidents of the use of ultralights for drug smuggling, Jesus Isaias Iriarte, a 25-year-old pilot carrying 210 pounds of marijuana, crashed in a field north of Tucson in October 2008. After a plea deal, he was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison.
Under the toughened measures in Giffords' proposal, smugglers could be given sentences of up to 20 years and $250,000 fines.
Iriarte's attorney, Charles Slack-Mendez, said it's not difficult for cartels to recruit flyers from Mexican beach resorts, where ultralights are common.
"My understanding is that they are not all that difficult to drive. It's not much more difficult than a motorcycle," he said.
Pearson, the sheriff's sergeant, said traffickers might not stop at smuggling marijuana. They will also bring cocaine and heroin - or explosives.
"Here's my big concern," Pearson said. "Four hundred pounds of C-4 (plastic explosive) will do a heck of a lot of damage. If that were a light airplane, or if that were a 757 talking to someone, I bet the Air Force would shoot them down."

[a2capt]

Plus the fines, heck, the jail time does little to deter, do you think a fine is going to matter?


Very valid points otherwise.


Similarly, when you operate out of a place like Bisbee, AZ- it is very well recomended that  you tell someone at the airport, or even file a flight plan ahead of time and activate it as soon as possible when launched.


You appear on radar as if you snuck in at low altitude from Mexico, and if you are flying east or west along the border .. that especially gets creative.

[blackrain]

I would like to see an F-16 intercept of an ultralight. THAT would be interesting.

[indygreg]

I would like to see an F-16 intercept of an ultralight. THAT would be interesting.

A-10 might be even more interesting.

[FARRIER]

How about Helicopter's? It would be closer to the ultrlights speed. Thats actually an invansion along the Arizona border. Federally, not much gets done.

[jb512]

Install some anti-aircraft?

[wuzafuzz]

Just call the White House and tell them BP is sending ultralights over the border.  They'll be all over that like CAP Talk members on a uniform discussion!   

[Smithsonia]

Last week I drove from San Diego on Interstate 8 - through Arizona on I-10 - and New Mexico up I-25. I went through 4 Border Patrol roadblocks and was queried at a rest stop another time. I saw lots of Border Patrol Agents working from hilltops and helicopters and planes buzzing about. Apparently, at least since the last time I took this trip 3 years ago, security is tightening.

[HGjunkie]

I would like to see an F-16 intercept of an ultralight. THAT would be interesting.

A-10 might be even more interesting.

Install some anti-aircraft?

EPIC OVERKILL. 

[jb512]

I would like to see an F-16 intercept of an ultralight. THAT would be interesting.

A-10 might be even more interesting.

Install some anti-aircraft?

EPIC OVERKILL. 

Not if you're trying to shoot down illegal aircraft entering the country.

[SarDragon]

Last week I drove from San Diego on Interstate 8 - through Arizona on I-10 - and New Mexico up I-25. I went through 4 Border Patrol roadblocks and was queried at a rest stop another time. I saw lots of Border Patrol Agents working from hilltops and helicopters and planes buzzing about. Apparently, at least since the last time I took this trip 3 years ago, security is tightening.

You were in the area, and you didn't gimme a jingle? 

[a2capt]

Last week I drove from San Diego on Interstate 8 - through Arizona on I-10 - and New Mexico up I-25.

I'm sorry
Though it's not nearly as boring as I-40, but darn close.

I went through 4 Border Patrol roadblocks and was queried at a rest stop another time. I saw lots of Border Patrol Agents working from hilltops and helicopters and planes buzzing about.

The level of activity comes and goes with the budget and the weather in Arizona ;-)

I-70 Rocks

[Flying Pig]

They must-a had some grant money to burn.  Actually, around the El Centro sector, its usually pretty busy.  Agents, helo and airplanes.

[blackrain]

Last week I drove from San Diego on Interstate 8 - through Arizona on I-10 - and New Mexico up I-25. I went through 4 Border Patrol roadblocks and was queried at a rest stop another time. I saw lots of Border Patrol Agents working from hilltops and helicopters and planes buzzing about. Apparently, at least since the last time I took this trip 3 years ago, security is tightening.

I was out in southern AZ last month and it was crawling with BP.

I always laugh when they ask me if I'm an American Citizen at the checkpoints. Last time an attractive (yes it was a female you degenerates ) BP agent asked if I was a citizen and for half a second I thought, since we were asking personal questions, asking if she was single. I thought better and just replied "why yes.....(insert chuckle) yes I am..."

[Short Field]

BP officers would check out my Dad at least once a year while I was growing up in the southwest.  Something about his big mustache and dark skin would tend to get their attention.  I was even asked once if I knew who he was before they went over to check him out.  I answered, "no, he just walked up here".  It was funny because as soon as my Dad started talking they lost all interest and would leave. 

[AlphaSigOU]

Some are not going to be satisfied until we build the American equivalent of the Antifascistenschutzmaurer ('Anti-Fascist Protection Wall') - what the late, unlamented German Democratic Republic officially called the Berlin Wall.

[Flying Pig]

Some are not going to be satisfied until we build the American equivalent of the Antifascistenschutzmaurer ('Anti-Fascist Protection Wall') - what the late, unlamented German Democratic Republic officially called the Berlin Wall.

I don't see that at all.  Id be happy with just enforcing the laws we already have.   You would fall over if you knew the level of illegal activity committed by illegals in CA alone.  Not to mention the level of Mexican cartel involvement.  However, in CA you cant contact people for being illegal, even if you know they are.  You have to wait for them to actually commit some other crime first.   I know you don't belong here, so Im going to wait across the street until you commit another crime first.

Anyway, not to detract, but I land every evening shaking my head at what I see happening with illegals and their criminal networks.  In the very near future what we see happening in the streets of Mexico will start happening here.  Then it will be to late to realize how simple the fix was back then.

[jb512]

Some are not going to be satisfied until we build the American equivalent of the Antifascistenschutzmaurer ('Anti-Fascist Protection Wall') - what the late, unlamented German Democratic Republic officially called the Berlin Wall.

Whoever those people may be are a a tad naive because that in itself won't solve the problem.  A physical barrier can only do so much, but empowering enforcement resources that we already have in place is a huge step in the right direction.  Now, as Arizona is showing us, we local police can have the ability to help with the problem too.

Keeping it in line with a CAP related thread, there's no reason why our aircraft can't be utilized more often as observation platforms to help as well.

You've got two cops from two different border states in this thread telling everyone that illegal immigration is a problem.  Plain and simple... doesn't get any simpler than that.