Word: squawks
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Dates: during 1991-1991
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...just after 8 a.m. on Sept. 23, 1985. Ken Kennedy, assistant special agent in charge of Miami's Drug Enforcement Administration office, is cruising down I-75, the Everglades Parkway, in his big blue Olds Delta 88. Over his two-way radio, Kennedy hears the squawk of an Air Force Black Hawk helicopter that is tracking a drug-laden plane from Colombia. The dope runner decides to land his plane on an unfinished section of I-75, not far from where Kennedy happens to be. "The copter guys are yelling, 'We have him!' " recalls Kennedy. "And I'm looking everywhere...
Warships and attack planes carry electronic ID systems, like the IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) radio transponders that are standard equipment on military and civilian aircraft. A missile battery equipped with IFF can "interrogate" an aircraft by beaming a radio signal at it and listening to the answering squawk. But the system is not foolproof. In the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Arab batteries fired 2,100 antiaircraft missiles and destroyed 85 aircraft -- 45 of them Arab, 40 Israeli...