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Air Patrols Flown Over New York City
Aired April 02, 2003 - 13:54 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Well as this war in Iraq goes on, the U.S. government is making sure the homeland is safe. With the U.S. threat level at high -- that is what it has been for some days now -- air patrols are being flown over New York City. Our Jeanne Meserve got a chance to fly along and she's with us now -- Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Judy, you're looking at a P3 airborne early warning aircraft. This is usually used for drug interdiction by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency down in Central and South America, but now it has been diverted, five of these aircrafts have, up to the Northeastern United States where they're helping patrol the border and keep an eye on the airspace.
I'm inside. This is really the guts of what happens here. You can see we have three screens monitoring the air traffic. Deborah Diaz (ph) is one of the people who looks at these screens on a regular basis. To my unpracticed eye, I can't make any sense of that. What are you looking at?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm looking at the aircraft in a radius of 360 and about 250 miles out of where we are right now.
MESERVE: Now, how looking at that can you sort any potential bad guy from regular air traffic?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well we divide it up, we zoom in into a specific area. And whatever traffic is in our area, we make sure he's properly identified.
MESERVE: And then if he doesn't, what happens?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If he's not identified, or he is acting outside of his flight plan, we then tell the proper authorities, and they take it from there.
MESERVE: OK, and then the Black Hawks go up -- we had a chance to fly with one of them today, quite an incredible experience. They will go up and try and identify any intruding aircraft and escort them out of the airspace. With me also here is William Oliver (ph). Tell me about the P3. This is new to this mission. What does it add to the mission?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is new to this mission, but it's basically a modification of the mission we've been doing for years. And what this allows us to do is provide a defense, in depth, if you will, which gives us a much earlier look at a possible incursion into the restricted airspace, allowing us the proper time to coordinate other assets and with other agencies so that we can provide the proper response.
MESERVE: Does it make us absolutely safe in Washington and in New York?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know that anything will make us "absolutely safe" due to the nature of the threat, but it put us light years ahead of where we were prior to this ramp up.
MESERVE: OK, William Oliver (ph), thanks so much. These patrols started a couple of weeks ago. Unclear at this point just how long they're going to have to continue. Judy, back to you.
WOODRUFF: Thanks Jeanne. Maybe not absolutely safe, but it's got to give people on the East Coast in Washington and the New York areas a somewhere greater sense of security and safety. Jeanne Meserve, thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 2, 2003 - 13:54 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Well as this war in Iraq goes on, the U.S. government is making sure the homeland is safe. With the U.S. threat level at high -- that is what it has been for some days now -- air patrols are being flown over New York City. Our Jeanne Meserve got a chance to fly along and she's with us now -- Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Judy, you're looking at a P3 airborne early warning aircraft. This is usually used for drug interdiction by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency down in Central and South America, but now it has been diverted, five of these aircrafts have, up to the Northeastern United States where they're helping patrol the border and keep an eye on the airspace.
I'm inside. This is really the guts of what happens here. You can see we have three screens monitoring the air traffic. Deborah Diaz (ph) is one of the people who looks at these screens on a regular basis. To my unpracticed eye, I can't make any sense of that. What are you looking at?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm looking at the aircraft in a radius of 360 and about 250 miles out of where we are right now.
MESERVE: Now, how looking at that can you sort any potential bad guy from regular air traffic?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well we divide it up, we zoom in into a specific area. And whatever traffic is in our area, we make sure he's properly identified.
MESERVE: And then if he doesn't, what happens?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If he's not identified, or he is acting outside of his flight plan, we then tell the proper authorities, and they take it from there.
MESERVE: OK, and then the Black Hawks go up -- we had a chance to fly with one of them today, quite an incredible experience. They will go up and try and identify any intruding aircraft and escort them out of the airspace. With me also here is William Oliver (ph). Tell me about the P3. This is new to this mission. What does it add to the mission?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is new to this mission, but it's basically a modification of the mission we've been doing for years. And what this allows us to do is provide a defense, in depth, if you will, which gives us a much earlier look at a possible incursion into the restricted airspace, allowing us the proper time to coordinate other assets and with other agencies so that we can provide the proper response.
MESERVE: Does it make us absolutely safe in Washington and in New York?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know that anything will make us "absolutely safe" due to the nature of the threat, but it put us light years ahead of where we were prior to this ramp up.
MESERVE: OK, William Oliver (ph), thanks so much. These patrols started a couple of weeks ago. Unclear at this point just how long they're going to have to continue. Judy, back to you.
WOODRUFF: Thanks Jeanne. Maybe not absolutely safe, but it's got to give people on the East Coast in Washington and the New York areas a somewhere greater sense of security and safety. Jeanne Meserve, thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
