By Dave Montgomery, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
WASHINGTON -- RC-7 surveillance planes, based in far West Texas and South Korea and used primarily to hunt drug smugglers in South and Central America, is now being recruited into the hunt for the Washington-area sniper.
The Canadian-made spy plane, a modified four-engine Beechcraft, resembles the thousands of propeller-driven civilian aircraft that dot the skies over America. They perform what the military calls OTW assignments: missions “other than warfare.”
The spy plane has long-range cameras, powerful radar and sensors that can track objects through clouds, darkness and foliage. But although the military’s contribution to the manhunt could help frustrated law enforcement officers, experts caution that the RC-7 is only an added resource and not the ultimate answer.
“It’s not a magic wand,” said Chris Hellman, senior analyst for the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
Four RC-7s are based at Fort Bliss near El Paso to pursue drug traffickers and three others are stationed in South Korea to patrol the demilitarized zone.
Defense officials have acknowledged that RC-7s are being dispatched to Washington at the request of the FBI but have provided few other details, saying that they don’t want to tip their hand to the target of the search.
At least one other surveillance craft might also be deployed, defense officials said, stirring speculation that it could be an unmanned aircraft. But defense experts say that all the available unmanned surveillance planes have been deployed to Afghanistan and that it would be unlikely that they would be used in the sniper search.
The marriage of military technology with civilian law enforcement could violate the decades-old ban that prevents the military from acting as police, some civil watchdog groups believe. Although the planes will be flown by military pilots, accompanying federal agents will relay the information to civilian authorities on the ground.
With a wingspan of 81 feet, the $ 16 million converted civilian aircraft can fly faster and higher than police helicopters and scour a range of 20 to 30 miles with powerful tracking equipment. Infrared sensors provide day-and-night vision.
Hellman said the surveillance craft can spot from a long distance a vehicle speeding or driving erratically. But if the getaway car “lays low or stops in a tunnel, it’s not going to help you much,” the defense analyst said.
Nevertheless, the plane’s ability to detect objects on the ground is far more powerful than the surveillance equipment in law enforcement aircraft, Hellman said. “It’s like a telescope compared to a pair of binoculars,” he said.
If ground law-enforcement officers spot a suspicious vehicle and relay information to the RC-7 crew, Hellman said, “it’s not going to get away from you.”