Images captured with the new Government of Canada aerial surveillance equipment

The Transport Canada Dash 8 surveillance aircraft on its first training mission to Newfoundland with the newly installed MSS 6000 surveillance system detected an oil slick in the Cabot Strait about 40 kilometres west of Cape Ray at about 3:30 pm on Wednesday November 29. 2006.

The slick was estimated to be 7.9 kilometres long and 700 metres wide and containing approximately 70 litres of oil.

The slick was detected by the side looking airborne radar (SLAR) of the MSS 6000 surveillance system. This is the first time that an oil slick has been detected by the new surveillance equipment.

Transport Canada is reviewing all vessel traffic in the area during the time period immediately previous to the detection of the slick. At this point in time, the slick is considered a mystery spill i.e. of unknown origin. While there was one vessel in the area at the time of the detection, due to its relative position and direction, it could not be associated with the spill.

Transport Canada is greatly encouraged by the performance of the new MSS Surveillance System. Based on initial testing of the system, the Government of Canada now has a significantly increased surveillance capability that greatly increases the potential of detecting polluters in the act and collecting evidence to prosecute.

The following pictures were taken during an aerial surveillance flight over the Great Lakes on November 27, 2006 and demonstrates the new surveillance equipment now installed on Transport Canada's Dash 8 pollution surveillance aircraft.

Transport Canada (TC) recently installed an MSS6000 on its pollution surveillance aircraft to enable the department to conduct real time monitoring of sea surface activities. The Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) is the key sensor of the MSS6000 system. It produces a very detailed radar map image of the sea surface covering the area of surveillance for minute variations in the sea clutter image such as oil spills, algae blooms, small point targets etc.

This is a screen capture of a SLAR image in Lake Ontario. At the time this image was taken, the aircraft was approximately 1.5 nautical miles (n.m) from the vessel - the vessel is the white linear feature seen in the image to the left of the centre line, the wake of the vessel can clearly be seen in the image.

The SLAR will be used by TC to detect anomalies on the ocean's surface that may be indicative of an oil spill, to approximately 25 nm to either side of the aircraft. This all-weather radar can be used during conditions of reduced visibility (darkness or low cloud cover) and can also detect vessels as far away as 50 nautical miles on either side of the aircraft. The previous aerial surveillance capabilities permitted the visual detection of ships only as far away as 2 n.m. The SLAR image has a GPS annotation with information from the aircraft's flight management system for evidence gathering purposes. If this image had been taken at night, it would look the same as darkness does not affect the image quality in any way.

This image shows a Side Looking Airborne Radar image superimposed over a tactical map to give a real time situation overview to system operators as well as recipients of the data on the ground. The map shows the area of coverage of the SLAR, the aircraft's flight track as well as targets (numbers with pink symbols) identified by the integrated Automatic Identification System (AIS). The AIS system provides real time information on all surface vessel traffic operated under the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). During this mission, vessels were identified as far as 150 n.m from the aircraft. The AIS provides the operators with vessel voyage and identity information. It is very useful for vectoring the aircraft to areas where ships have been reported.

The MSS6000 also provides a camera system for digital imagery and video documentation. Each frame is automatically annotated with time, position, and mission information for future reference. Once an anomaly is detected on the ocean surface, the aircraft is vectored to its position to start the evidence gathering procedures.

Using the Geo-coded Digital Camera System, TC can take video or still pictures of the activities surrounding the vessel, and of the discharge that was detected by the SLAR. The vessel here was on a routine voyage in Lake Ontario, and is shown as an example of the clarity of the photos taken by the Geo-coded Digital Camera System. The picture is geo-annotated with the exact location, date, time, heading, and position of the vessel, as well as the altitude and flight number of the aircraft. The picture is sequence numbered for evidence gathering purposes.

The MSS6000 also has an integrated Infrared / Ultraviolet (IR/UV) Line Scanner which is used to obtain high resolution imagery of ship wakes, accident sites etc. It is ideal for mapping oil spills and other types of pollution as well as other types of hydrological phenomena such as upwelling warmer/colder water. It will mainly be used by TC for closer investigation of a suspected oil spill and it will assist TC in determining where the thickest oil is located during a pollution incident.

This photo shows a vessel displayed in the IR and UV mode simultaneously. The image on the left is taken with the Infrared detector. This measures the infrared emission from the sea surface. The IR is insensitive to light conditions, haze of light fog between the aircraft and sea surface. The image on the right is taken with the UV detector. The UV detector measures the reflected ultraviolet radiation from the sea surface. The UV requires daylight for proper operation as well as clean air between the aircraft and sea surface. Oil must be on the sea surface for proper detection.

Fortunately in this picture, there was no oil present and therefore the vessel's wake is clean. The UV image shows some reflection caused by the vessel's advancing motion, it is indicated by the ripples in the water's surface.