Maine-Canada patrol flights set Houlton-based plane to scan border, coast

HOULTON – Sometime this week, there will be a new tenant at Houlton International Airport.

Officials with the Houlton sector of the United States Border Patrol said Monday that the agency will permanently base an airplane at the airport as part of stepped-up border security efforts.

According to Matthew Zetts Sr., assistant chief patrol agent at Houlton, the aircraft is one of several such planes that will be stationed at airports along the country’s border with Canada. The use of the planes came about as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Zetts said the plane based in Maine will be used to patrol 611 miles of land border between Maine and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick. The plane also will be used to patrol 1,000 miles of the state’s craggy coastline.

“It will be used to help us identify and locate undocumented aliens, illicit narcotics traffic and anything else that comes across the border illegally,” Zetts said Monday during a telephone interview.

The plane is a single-engine Cessna 206 that can carry up to six people, including the pilot. A Border Patrol pilot also will be stationed at Houlton, Zetts said.

Last Friday, President Bush was in Portland where he said he planned to ask for double the funding for homeland security to $38 billion annually.

Bush said that U.S. and Canadian officials have nearly agreed upon a new border initiative to achieve greater security. The new policies are expected to improve communication, enforcement and interaction between both countries, the president said.

Maine has the third-longest border of any state with Canada, much of it through unguarded woodlands.

“We can cover a lot of ground with an aircraft,” Zetts said. “It’s a big force multiplier.”

The plane and pilot are being based at Houlton because that is where the sector headquarters is and because of the airport’s proximity to the border, which literally forms part of the airport property line.

A port of entry facility is located less than a mile from the airport.

Roland Richardson, the assistant chief patrol agent at Houlton who will oversee air operations, said the airplane also will be used to move agents from one part of the state to another where they might be needed.

“It will be used as needed any time we feel it will be most beneficial to us,” Richardson said.

Using an airplane is faster and more efficient than having to drive to some of the more remote border checkpoints such as Jackman in western Maine, Zetts said.

The pending arrival of the $300,000 plane is good news for Terry Larson of Larson’s Flying Service, the fixed-base operator at the Houlton airport.

He said Monday that the Border Patrol is leasing office space in the airport terminal building as well as space in the hangar. Fuel for plane also will be purchased at Houlton, and local mechanics will be used for aircraft maintenance.

The significance of the airplane being based at Houlton was not lost on Larson.

“This is the easternmost airport with a commercial port of entry [with Canada],” he said. “Obviously, we hope this is the first of many that realize the significance of the location.”