32 WINGS | March/April 2015 WWW.WINGSMAGAZINE.COM
PHOTO: MARTother industrial sites strung along the wa-
terfront intermixed with the grain eleva-
tors, container terminals and bulk loading
facilities that make up Canada’s largest
port.
We head over to the Lions Gate Bridge
and a quick survey of the dozen or so
ships at anchor in English Bay and then
a moving target presents itself: the ferry
Queen of Oak Bay on the Nanaimo route
passes inspection as do several tug boats
and their barges. There is a continual
conversation in the headphones between
all four members of the team. The pilots
have taken the same observer training
as the MART members in the rear of the
plane and they are able to give the sensor
operator in the rear some potential targets
to check in advance of the aircraft’s pass-
ing. To a first-time visitor it’s like trying to
follow an auctioneer for the first time and
constantly finding yourself half a step be-
hind. There’s so much to see looking out
the observer’s portal, especially when you
don’t know what you would be looking for.
A churning in the water turns out to be
dozens of Pacific white-side dolphins frol-
icking within sight of Vancouver, but if we
hadn’t flown over them you would never
know they were there.
At Nanaimo, the plane banks left and
we fly down the east coast of Vancouver
Island, surveying marine traffic, marinas
and several large industrial plants. One
area of interest is near Ladysmith, where
TC gathers abandoned and derelict ves-
sels from the region. It’s negative today,
but near Chemainus, the late autumn sun
shows up the unmistakable sheen of oil on
the water at a small marina, over an area of
as much as 1,000 square metres. Scanned
with the aircraft’s sensors, the amount of
the spill is determined to be about 1.5 li-
tres. Spills of more than five litres or from
an identified source are reported to the
Coast Guard immediately, but as this spill
was neither, it will just be noted as part of
the day’s report. Where the source of the
spill can be positively identified charges
can be laid.
Since 2004, evidence gathered by the
NASP has resulted in charges from 29
incidents, with $1.86 million in penalties
being levied following prosecution. At the
same time, the sensor operator was cap-
turing the data on the slick, the dilligent
Wings observer on this flight was using a
Nikon DSLR to capture high-resolution
digital images. The MART members
switch positions every hour or so to ease
the strain. The concentration level is the
same at both positions and the stress level
is the same, but a change is as good as a
rest.
Continuing on down Vancouver Island,
we pass over Victoria’s Inner Harbourthe provincial legislature and Empress
hotel directly below, quickly followed by
Esquimalt, home to the Royal Canadian
Navy’s Pacific Fleet. The navy’s clean and
we’re westbound over the Straits of Juan
de Fuca, a target-rich environment as the
only access route deep sea ships take to
the ports of Vancouver and Seattle. The
plane climbs to give the SLAR more room
to work as the open expanse of the Pacific
appears ahead and the land slips away be-
hind us.
A ship shows up as a white dot on the
black radar display at the sensor opera-
tor’s position. The display above the radar
screen projects the AIS information from
the ship as well as the aircraft’s flight track.
It’s the MV Morning Salute, an 88,000
dwt bulk carrier outbound from the coal
terminal at Roberts Bank (Port of Van-
couver) for Japan. Descending for a closer
look, the sensor operator uses the Wescam
MX-15 electo-optical system, zooming in
to verify the name of the ship from almost
six kilometres out. It used to be common
practice for ships to dump their bilge wa-
ter, a witch’s brew of oils, chemicals and
other poisonous substances into the ocean
as soon as they were out of sight of land
rather than incurring the expense of dis-
posing of it while in port. The result was
the death of hundreds of thousands of sea
birds and the further impact on the entireTransport Canada (TC) and Environment Canada have teamed up to operate the National Aerial Surveillance Program (NASP), consisting of three
Dash 8-100 aircraft.