MONROE COUNTY, Fla. – The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office dive team now has brand new eyes in the water: a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) with a high-tech camera and a multi-beam sonar.
It’s better technology to see further beneath the surface in real-time.
Deputy Nelson Sanchez, dive team leader, showed Local 10 images of a submerged car taken by the sonar during a training session in Key West. The car was approximately 30 feet deep in murky water.
“We could totally miss it if we didn’t have that sonar,” he said. “The benefit of having a sonar that’s live, is that when it’s sitting on an ROV and you’re moving the ROV through the water, you can pinpoint an object and navigate to it.”
Deputies said the decision to acquire the new ROV was spawned after a plane crash in the lower Keys last spring. Relatives of Ali Tufo, 36, said she and her boyfriend, Tommy Campana, left in his single-engine plane from Fort Lauderdale in early March.
The Sheriff’s Office said an oil and gas sheen was spotted about 9 miles north of Big Pine Key as they and Coast Guard crews searched. Divers could see the wing and even sharks with their other equipment, but only in still images and not in real-time.
“Once we put divers in the water there’s a level of danger,” Sanchez said.
The victims’ bodies were never recovered.
The sonar and camera equipment can also be worn by rescue divers. Commander Vince Weiner said MCSO is the only law enforcement department in the U.S. Southeast region to have that type of body-worn technology.
The technology costs approximately $130,000 and was purchased with drug forfeiture money, Weiner said.
Training occurs every month.