KOROR (Palau Horizon) — A Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion recently patrolled the skies of Palau searching for illegal fishing boats within the Palau Exclusive Economic Zone.
The good news for Palau is that only 19 fishing boats were sighted in Palau waters and all of those boats were licensed to fish.
When the Orion landed at Koror International Airport, the maritime surveillance adviser for Palau, Lt. Cmdr. Bob Heffey, and the chief of Marine Law Enforcement Division, Capt. Ellender Ngirameketii, were on the tarmac to provide support to the New Zealand Defense Force personnel.
The commanding officer of the $90 million aircraft, Wing Cmdr. Carl Nixon, briefed MSA and CMLED on the results of the patrol and planned the next day’s search area. During the patrol, the aircraft overflew the national patrol boat, PSS President H.I. Remeliik, south of the Rock Islands and provided it with up to date positions of the fishing boats.
According to Heffey, “Since the tragedy in the U.S. last year we have had very little air support in Palau’s waters. (But) PSS President H.I. Remeliik does a fantastic job in surface surveillance of such a large area and manages to keep most of the illegal fishing boats out of Palau’s waters.”
