Georgina Saldierna and Enrique Mendez
Newspaper La Jornada
Friday April 29, 2022, p. 13
In order to identify, follow and intercept ships that traffic drugs -mainly to the United States-, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent an initiative to the Chamber of Deputies to guarantee full control over the airspace.
The policy of safeguarding the air space would be in charge of the Mexican Air Force (FAM) and its planes will have flight priority in cases of operations against organized crime, as defined in the project received yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies and turned over to commissions for analysis.
The president proposed to the chamber a law to protect Mexican airspace and, explaining the reason for the initiative, stated: The United States Customs and Border Protection Service reported that, in 2019, 118 tons of cocaine entered that country by air, with a value of 135 billion pesos.
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In the statement of reasons, the president reported that the Ministry of National Defense has detected irregularities in private aviation operations such as false flight licenses, identity theft, aircraft without documents, illegal transportation of hydrocarbons, operation on clandestine runways and officials who facilitate illicit flights, among others.
Currently, he indicated, 281 pilots, operations of 274 aircraft and 26 companies whose employees have incurred operating or operating anomalies are under observation.
As part of the current surveillance, between December 2018 and November 2021, 720 air alerts have been issued caused by ships that did not comply with the regulations and 88 of these were made available to the competent authorities for violating Mexican airspace.
The president explained to legislators that organized crime flights not only involve drug trafficking, they also represent a risk of accidents for civil aviation, because they can invade commercial or private aircraft routes.
The initiative proposes that Sedena head a control system and that a national center for surveillance and protection of Mexican airspace be established, which would be in charge of operating the means of detection, identification and aerial interception of clandestine flights.
