Two passenger aircraft equipped with radar, hi-tech cameras and sensors have been hired by the UK Home Office to provide 24/7 surveillance of migrants trying to cross the Channel in small boats.
The two De Havilland Dash 8 aircraft – normally used as private passenger planes – are being deployed at a cost of £34 million to help stop illegal landings, intercept the boats, prevent deaths at sea and provide intelligence on people smugglers and migrant movements.
The Home Office has been operating one of the fixed-wing propeller planes, which insiders say has already helped provide information that has enabled the prosecution of people smugglers. But this single plane has only been able to provide eight hours of cover before the two pilots have to return to their base at RAF Lydd in Kent to rest and refuel.
The addition of a second craft, expected from next spring, will provide the 4,000 hours of annual air surveillance needed to ensure the Channel is covered 24/7 for the 200 days a year when the weather is good enough for the small boats to set out to sea.
However, on those days when they are not required to monitor the Channel for migrants, the planes and their crew will work with the UK’s Joint Maritime Security Centre, Ministry of Defence and Coastguard to protect our sea borders and help intercept any other smugglers.
It is understood that the De Havilland plane currently flying in the Channel has been involved in operations with the National Crime Agency to intercept drug-smuggler boats.
The planes and pilots are provided by PAL Aerospace, a Canadian company, but the six surveillance and intelligence experts who operate the cameras, sensors and security equipment in the body of the craft are part of the small boats operational command headed by Maj Gen Duncan Capps.
The manned aircraft known as Phoenix is effectively a smaller civilian version of the RAF’s former maritime patrol and reconnaissance Nimrod planes which have now been replaced by the P8 Poseidon patrol craft.
Insiders say that since the first De Havilland took to the air, not a single migrant has reached the UK on a small boat undetected, while none of the 70 deaths so far this year have occurred in British waters.
More than 33,000 migrants have so far been intercepted this year crossing the Channel on small boats, up 20 per cent on last year but down on 2022, the record year to date.
The planes are part of a mini-airforce that includes fixed-wing drones capable of cruising at 60mph at heights of hundreds of metres with cameras and drones with sensors that can be launched from vessels at sea
