Drone aircraft to patrol San Diego skies in federal plan

By Staff, City News Service
Sunday, December 6, 2009

Federal officials will unveil unmanned drone aircraft Monday that will soon be circling the skies of Southern California, using radar to find illegal border crossers.

The planes, called Maritime MQ-9 Predator B Guardian Unmanned Aircraft Systems, have already been used along the Mexican border in Arizona and Texas, and along the Canadian border in North Dakota. They will be based at a private airport operated by General Atomics about 5 miles east of Lake Los Angeles, in the Mohave Desert some 160 miles north of the Mexican border.

Agency spokesperson Juan Munoz-Torres told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the drones based in the California high desert will use radar, in addition to long-range video cameras, to spot smugglers or immigrants bypassing ports of entry.

“This one has the capacity of detecting vessels in the water,â€