BBC News Online October 19, 2002
Sniper spy in the sky
By Kathryn Westcott
The army spy plane that is taking to the skies above the Washington area is a sign of the intense pressure investigators are under as they struggle with a lack of clues.
The sniper terrorising Washington's suburbs has eluded them for more than two weeks, and defence experts say investigators need all the help they can get.
RC-7 reconnaissance planes are loaded with camera equipment with a range of up to 20 miles (32 kilometres), advanced night vision and heat-seeking equipment.
They are usually manned by a crew of seven.
This is an aircraft that has been recently deployed to track drug lords in Colombia and survey the military in North Korea.
Vehicle tracking
And defence experts say it could be a useful tool in hunting the killer.
"The theory is the plane will fly in circles over downtown Washington," says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org and an expert on military hardware.
"When there is another shooting, it will quickly point its telescopic camera at the crime scene and transmit high-resolution imagery to the ground immediately."
RC-7 reconnaissance planes are loaded with long-range camera equipment
With an ability to focus on a single vehicle from a distance, the main function of the RC-7 will be to provide aerial surveillance of a getaway vehicle used by the sniper. The camera operator could radio the location of the vehicle and let police know which streets to block.
Defence experts say that while police on the ground may eventually lose a get away car, aerial surveillance rarely does.
In the past, a number of witnesses have reported sightings of a white van speeding away from the scenes of the shootings. But, despite roadblocks and police dragnets, the vehicle has proved elusive.
'No breakthrough'
The RC-7 is designed to loiter at a low speed of 125mph in all weathers, and can stay aloft for up to 10 hours. There is talk of another spy plane being deployed - although it is not clear what kind.
With two planes rotating shifts, surveillance over metropolitan Washington - a region of five million people - could be provided round the clock.
But many residents will not even notice that the surveillance aircraft are there. The RC-7 flies about five or six kilometres above the ground and is indistinguishable from a small passenger plane, says Mr Pike.
While defence analysts agree that the plane will assist the investigation, they say it is unlikely to provide the much-needed breakthrough.
"This is not a miracle machine," says Daniel Goure, defence analyst and vice-president of the Lexington Institute, a public policy centre in Arlington Virginia.
"No one knows where and when a crime is going to occur beforehand. So, when the camera operator gets information that there has been a shooting in a particular area, he would home in on that area and specify that all large vehicles be isolated on the radar.
"However, much will depend on the vehicle activity in that area at the time. And there is nothing to say that the sniper will again use the large van that witnesses have reported seeing."
'Missed shootings'
And, while the plane has sensors that can detect a bullet's path, Mr Goure says it is unlikely the spy plane would be able to catch the sniper in the act.
"These planes are designed for military use, to detect movement at night - military emplacements, a sniper's location," Mr Goure says.
"But in such a situation I would have information that would lead me to narrow down the areas in which I would use the surveillance technology, such as following military manoeuvres. But in this case, given the sniper's mobility, they would have to be extremely lucky to or acting on a tip off."
Mr Pike describes the deployment of the spy planes as a "tough surveillance mission." If the aircraft is to loiter above Washington, he says it would have missed a number of the previous shootings.
"Some of them are so far south that they would have fallen beyond the scope of the spy plane's fall beyond surveillance.
"If the plane had been deployed in the downtown Washington area before now, it would have missed some of the attacks," he says.
Unlike most serial killers, there appears to be no motive why the sniper has specifically targeted residents of the Washington area.
And Mr Pike says that no amount of sophisticated technology would stop the sniper simply moving to another city and beginning his campaign of terror all over again.
Copyright 2002 BBC News Online
