Airborne surveillance company AirScan is operating a Cessna 337 light aircraft in Macedonia in support of US Army attempts to monitor the Kosovo-Macedonian border.
The Florida-based private company is operating under a contract let late last year to provide surveillance support to US peacekeeping in Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo, with 100h flying a month.
One of the company's US-registered Cessnas is based at Petrovec airport to the east of Macedonia's capital, Skopje, and is equipped with a Wescam forward looking infrared pod under its port wing and datalink pod under its starboard wing.
It is understood that the aircraft has flown daily missions along the border as part of the NATO effort to interdict the movement of ethnic Albanian insurgents in Macedonia from Kosovo.
The aircraft was operating in Macedonia at the height of the fighting in Tetovo last month, two weeks before US Air Force General Atomics RQ-1B Predators arrived at Petrovic to take over the mission of providing real-time imagery support for US forces. The AirScan aircraft is operating solely on behalf of US forces and does not share the imagery with NATO forces.
AirScan has airborne surveillance contracts with a number of US Government agencies and has recently worked for oil companies in Angola and the Colombian Government.
Source: Flight International
