Breathe
By Rosario Avilés
At noon on Monday, February 3, while President Sheinbaum and Donald Trump were sending messages to announce an agreement that stopped the imposition of 25% tariffs on Mexican products to the United States, through actions to prevent the trafficking of fentanyl and the passage of migrants, a Boeing RC-135V Rivet Joint aircraft of the US Air Force flew over the Sea of Cortez, airspace controlled by Mexico.
The plane was detected by the controllers of Servicios a la Navegación en el Espacio Aéreo Mexicano (Seneam), a public agency in charge of managing air traffic throughout the national territory and that, although it depends on the SICT, since March 2023 with the Mexican Airspace Protection Law, it must coordinate and subordinate itself to the National Center for the Protection and Surveillance of Airspace (CENAVI) headed by the Defense.
The transit of military aircraft from the United States is not uncommon, as part of the bilateral cooperation between the two countries' armed forces, but almost always at much higher altitudes or at ground level. However, this particular aircraft was flying at an altitude of 32,550 feet, an area where it could encounter commercial aircraft ascending or descending, as these are very busy airways, which is not only abnormal but risky.
The aircraft, a modified C-135 with a series of sensors on board to detect, identify and geolocate signals from the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and whose mission is to track signals for intelligence work, belongs to the U.S. special forces which, among other things, has had missions in Kosovo, Libya and other countries at war and, along with 16 other similar aircraft, is permanently based at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.
These aircraft are usually dedicated to tracking encrypted signals on different types of frequencies -many of them used by clandestine groups- to gather information and locate possible locations, weapons, suspicious operations, etc., not noticeable to the naked eye.
The Mazatlan Air Traffic Control Center was able to detect the aircraft through the radar, but it was already visible on the usual public access applications, such as flightradar, whose screen showed the presence of this aircraft among the many that circulate in the area, also making visible the type of aircraft and its origin: the US Air Force of the United States.
The controllers immediately notified Cenavi, as required by this recent legislation, but it was clear that -whether or not it was approved for entry into Mexican airspace-the aircraft should not have flown at that altitude without being controlled by the civil services or at least managed to avoid conflictive areas.
The Sea of Cortes, although it is not officially Mexican territorial sea, in spite of having the characteristics for it, is under the management of the Seneam and although a small corridor exists between the strips of territorial sea of a coast and another one (12 nautical miles in each case), the certain thing is that this corridor to that altitude, must be controlled to avoid risks.
Although the Ministry of Defense issued a statement reporting the sighting of an aircraft 83 kilometers southwest of Cabo San Lucas, thetruth is that the U.S. Air Force plane transited for several minutes within the Sea of Cortez and very close to the coast of Sinaloa before returning to the Pacific Ocean and it was noticeable to all those who had access to social networks that it was there to be seen.
It seems to be no coincidence that on the day that the governments of Mexico and the United States agree to deploy Mexican troops to the border and take concrete and forceful actions to stop the trafficking of fentanyl and migrants to the United States, an aircraft appears that clearly shows that our northern neighbor is not going to be satisfied with one or another maneuver with media coverage that suggests that it is taking Mexico's commitment seriously.
It is certainly a message and this one seems to show that their planes incursion into our controlled airspace is because they can. Complicated moments that will demand a lot of intelligence and, perhaps the best for our country, real signs of a serious commitment to security in the face of the trafficking groups.
*Rosario Avilés:
Journalist specialized in Air Transport and Aerospace Industry with more than 30 years of experience. She heads the news portal Aviación/Aeroespacial 21 (A21) and writes the column Despegues y Aterrizajes (Takeoffs and Landings).
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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