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British Army drone used against the Taliban will monitor the English Channel for migrant boats

Border Force - Steve Finn Phtotgraphy
Border Force - Steve Finn Phtotgraphy

An Army drone previously used in Afghanistan is to fly over the English Channel to monitor migrant boats as the crisis continues.

The Watchkeeper drone will be used to help tackle the dangerous crossings, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

It is the first time the eye-in-the-sky war technology will fly in the UK operationally.

It comes as migrants continue to risk the dangerous seas in the Dover Strait, though bad weather has limited crossings recently.

Other armed forces aircraft, including Atlas A-400M, Shadow R1 and P-8 Poseidon have also been authorised to help monitor Channel crossings.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy is considering deploying small patrol boats to the Channel to assist the Border Force.

More than 5,000 migrants have crossed to the UK in small boats so far in 2020, analysis shows.

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An MoD spokesperson said: "The deployment of Watchkeeper provides further defence support to the Home Office in tackling the increasing number of small boats crossing the English Channel.

"It will provide a leading surveillance and reconnaissance capability, feeding information back to the Border Force and allowing them to take appropriate action where necessary."

The unmanned air system (UAS) was used to support British armed forces in Afghanistan and was hailed as a "battle-winning technology" by then defence secretary Michael Fallon in 2014.

Now it is scheduled to fly from Lydd Airport, and will be operated by 47th Regiment Royal Artillery.

The MoD says the unmanned aircraft hosts a range of sensors, including Electro-Optic and Infra-red full motion video day-and-night camera, Synthetic Aperture Radar and a Moving Target Indicator radar.

“It will provide a leading surveillance and reconnaissance capability, feeding information back to the Border Force and allowing them to take appropriate action where necessary,” a MoD spokeswoman added.

The Watchkeeper programme has cost the UK more than £1 billion, figures released in 2017 showed. However, the drones have been beset by issues in recent years.

The drone is piloted by radio signals, which means troops must be close on the ground nearby to fly it. For this reason it has been less suitable for deployment over Syria and Iraq than the Reaper, an RAF drone that is controlled by satellite and can be operated from thousands of miles away.

The drone is 6.5m long, with a wingspan of almost 11m, and can fly for up to 14 hours. It weighs 485kg, can fly within a range of 150km from its ground station, and cruises at a speed of up to 77 knots at an altitude of 16,000ft. Made by Thales, the French defence and aerospace giant, the platforms cost around £22m each.

Four Watchkeeper drones are known to have crashed, including two which plunged into the sea off the coast of Wales in early 2017.

The other two crashes happened in 2014 and 2015, whilst they were landing at West Wales Airport and MoD Boscombe Down respectively.