DHS submersible Pluto mimics the real narco-subs

knowing they’ll be rescued by us anyway,” says Tomaiko. Meanwhile, cramped living conditions within the illegal SSPSs can be horrendous. There is generally only 3” of space above the waterline, meaning the ride can be very rough. The small crews of three or four have little to eat, poor air quality, no toilet facilities, operate with little rest until they reach their destination, and are sometimes watched over by an armed guard.

If the mission is undetected and the drugs successfully delivered, the vessel is typically scuttled and not reused. “Drug-running is lucrative. It is cheaper to simply build another vessel than to run the risk of trying to get a vessel and its crew home,” says Tomaiko. In a typical operation, PLUTO will operate at SPSS cruising speeds of four to eight knots while remote sensor platforms from sea to space attempt to detect and track it at various distances and observation angles. S&T’s PLUTO is home-ported at Eglin Air Force Base, near Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and is maintained by the Air Force’s 46th Test Squadron. Various civilian and military agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection/Air and Marine (CBP/OAM), U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and other national agencies have tested their remote sensing capabilities against PLUTO in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, and the Pacific.

In 2009 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) tested its Dash 8 maritime surveillance aircraft against PLUTO at the Eglin range and near Key West, Florida. These results helped gauge the performance of the Dash 8’s SeaVue radar against PLUTO and helped determine detection distances and aspect angles for optimal mission performance. In addition, the U.S. Navy tested one of its P-3 aircraft equipped with maritime surveillance radar system against PLUTO. A&T says that all such tests were instrumental in helping to verify the performance of sensor capabilities, and provided operators with real-world training which will help determine future tactics. PLUTO is just over 45-feet long, can run roughly ten knots at maximum speed, and can hold a crew of three to four, although it usually operates with only one for safety reasons. It has VHF and HF radios, and the 46th Test Squadron can install other types of radios and maritime automated identification system (AIS) equipment to meet testing or safety requirements. Conditions onboard, however, were primarily influenced by the need for crew safety, so PLUTO’s design does not exactly mimic that of illegal SSPSs. Technical capabilities such as PLUTO are necessary to counter and stay ahead of threats to the country.

Admiral James Stavridis, former joint commander for all U.S. forces in the Caribbean, Central and South America, wrote, “Criminals are never going to wait for law enforcement to catch up. They are always extending the boundaries of imagination, and likewise, we must strive to push forward technology and invest in systems designed specifically to counter the semi-submersible. We need to be able to rapidly detect and interdict this new type of threat, both for its current effects via the drug trade, and – more troublingly – for its potential as a weapon in the hands of terrorists.”