4-1 Final Report of the Mini CEPCO North 2017

Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission Annual Meeting of the Informal Working Group on Aerial IWGAS 2018 Surveillance Stockholm/Skavsta airport, 22-23 March 2018

Document title Final report of the Mini CEPCO North 2017 Code 4-1 Category INF Agenda Item 4 - CEPCO operations in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 Submission date 21.2.2018 Submitted by Secretariat Reference

Background The attached document contains the Final Report from Mini CEPCO North 2017.

Action requested The Meeting is invited to take note of the report.

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Date Our reference 2017-10-17 Lars-Erik Svärd

Registration No

Final Report Mini-CEPCO 2017-10-17

POSTAL ADDRESS VISITING ADDRESS PHONE FAX E-MAIL AND INTERNET

Swedish Coast Guard Pilotgången 4 +46 455 35 34 00 +46 455 105 21 [email protected] Flight division Skavsta Airport www.coastguard.se Box 536 NYKÖPING SE- 371 23 KARLSKRONA SWEDEN SWEDISH COAST GUARD 2 (7)

Index Page 1 Mini-CEPCO 3 1.1 Summary 3 1.2 Objectives of the operation 3 1.3 Weather conditions 3 1.4 Flights 3 1.5 Satellite images 6 1.6 Results 6 1.7 Conclusions 6 1.8 Mailing list 7 SWEDISH COAST GUARD 3 (7)

1 Mini-CEPCO

1.1 Summary HELCOM MiniCEPCO 2/2017 operation took place in the Northern Baltic Sea area 17th of October 2017. The operation was coordinated by Swedish Coast Guard flight division.

Finland, Sweden and Estonia were planned to participate in the operation. The Estonian surveillance aircraft was grounded due to technical reasons. 4 flights were planned to be flown.

EMSA CleanSeaNet satellite service supported the operation with one satellite image.

The weather was quite good during the operation.

As a conclusion the operation was successful even though no spills were detected..

1.2 Objectives of the operation HELCOM Mini-CEPCO 2/2017 was a joint effort of Finland, Estonia and Sweden. The objective was to continuously patrol the busiest shipping lanes in the Northern Baltic Sea region for more than 12 hours.

General objective of any CEPCO-operation is to continuously survey a selected area and to detect and report oil pollution cases in that area. In case of red-handed polluters, all the relevant documentation of the pollution and polluter are gathered and further handed over for law enforcement authorities to impose possible sanctions. One of the main objectives of CEPCO-operations is to further practice international collaboration. During the operation, it is also easy to give extensive flight support for verifying satellite detections of oil.

1.3 Weather conditions The weather was quite good during the operation SLAR Coverage 13 - 15 nm on both sides of the aircraft. Visibility good, Wind 5-6 m/s.

1.4 Flights Finland, Sweden and Estonia were planned to participate to operate from their home bases and fly different pre-planned routes for each country, but in the same region, in the Northern Baltic Sea. The Estonian surveillance aircraft was grounded due to technical reasons. This was reported as an answer to the invitation of the mini CEPCO. 4 flights were planned to be flown. The final time schedule for Sweden and Finland as shown below. SWEDISH COAST GUARD 4 (7)

Planned take-off times:

Sweden 08:00 UTC ESKN – ESKN Finland 09:00 UTC EFTU – ESSV Finland 13:00 UTC ESSV – EFTU Sweden 16:00 UTC ESKN – ESKN

Actual flight times: Finland total flight time, day over sea 4:35

Sweden: Day time over sea: 04:55 (Route 1) Night time over sea: 05:10 (Route 2) SWEDISH COAST GUARD 5 (7)

First Swedish flight

Second Swedish flight

SWEDISH COAST GUARD 6 (7) 1.5 Satellite images European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) provided one satellite image for the miniCepco, one Radarsat-2. No spills were detected.

Radarsat 2, 17 October, 16:31 UTC, Service id: 1710170034

1.6 Results Finland: No pollution detected on Route 1 No pollution detected on Route 2 Sweden 1: No detected spills. 116 merchant ships and 14 fishing vessel within SLAR detection range, Sweden 2: No detected spills

1.7 Conclusions The weather conditions this time of year are often bad, but this year the weather was good and the SLAR conditions were very good.

The Estonian surveillance aircraft was grounded due to technical reasons. So this autumn it had to be Finland and Sweden. The coverage time in the area was limited to 14:40. But we managed to fly more than more than 12 hours which was one of the objectives with the mini-CEPCO

No spills were found, nor from the airplanes or the satellites.

This operation shows our international cooperation works well with planning routines, and separate routes that works for each country.

Satellite images and air surveillance works together to a give an overview of a special area as good complements to each other.

SWEDISH COAST GUARD 7 (7)

Distribution by e-mail:

Swedish Coast Guard [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Estonian Police and Border Guard [email protected]

Finnish Border Guard Headquarters [email protected]

Finnish Border Guard, Air Patrol Squadron [email protected]

Swedish Naval Control East [email protected] [email protected]

CC: Swedish Coast Guard [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Finnish Border Guard / Air Patrol Squadron HQ [email protected]