According to a U.S. official, the U.S. downed the Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of Carolina on Saturday and would make an effort to recover its debris.
 |
| US fighter jets shoot down Chinese spy balloon off East Coast |
The action was taken a few hours after President Joe Biden responded to a reporter who inquired as to whether the United States would fire down the balloon. In his first statements regarding the balloon made in front of the public, Biden remarked, "We're going to take care of it."
After the balloon was shot down, Biden told reporters that he gave the Pentagon the order after receiving a briefing on Wednesday.\
"They concluded that the optimum time to do that was when it went over water," he continued, "without doing damage to people on the ground." "They were able to bring it down, and I want to congratulate our aviators for doing it. And we'll have more to say about this later.
A senior defense official reported that an F-22 raptor shot down the balloon at 2:39 PM with a single missile. In the air at the time of its downing, the balloon was somewhere between 60,000 and 65,000 feet.
According to a senior U.S. military official who spoke to NBC News, the debris field left by the balloon spans about 7 nautical miles, and ships and naval divers are anticipated to aid in the recovery of the fragments.
The balloon was shot down "above U.S. territorial seas" off the coast of South Carolina, said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a statement.
The high altitude surveillance balloon launched by and belonging to the People's Republic of China (PRC) was effectively brought down by American fighter planes assigned to U.S. Northern Command this afternoon, according to Austin.
"The balloon was brought down above U.S. territorial seas," he claimed. "The PRC was using it in an attempt to monitor strategic points in the mainland United States."
He continued by saying that on Wednesday, Biden "provided his clearance to bring the balloon down as soon as the objective could be done without excessive risk to American lives under the balloon's path." Due to the balloon's size, height, and surveillance payload, U.S. military officials judged that bringing the balloon down while it was above land would put people in a large region at an unreasonable danger.
Prior to Monday's entry into Canadian territory, the balloon had entered U.S. airspace on January 28 north of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, according to a senior defense official. Tuesday in northern Idaho, it re-entered American airspace.
According to a senior defense official, officials have been examining the balloon in recent days and have noted that it "was clearly traveling over important places, particularly sensitive military sites."
"We have learnt technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities, and I anticipate that if we are successful in recovering some of the debris, we will learn even more," the defense official added.
Residents of North Carolina and South Carolina saw the spy balloon hours before it was shot down, and the Federal Aviation Administration said it had stopped arrivals and departures at three nearby airports to assist the Defense Department in "a national security endeavor."
The FAA announced in an update on Saturday afternoon that flights to and from the three airports — Wilmington International Airport, Myrtle Beach International Airport, and Charleston International Airport in South Carolina — have resumed.
Videos of fighter jets shooting down the spy balloon are going viral on social media. Before the balloon begins to drop from the sky, we can see the jets getting closer to it.
According to a senior U.S. military official, the two F-22s deployed for the mission were designated FRANK01 and FRANK02 in honor of World War I hero Frank Luke Jr., who is famous for blowing up German observation balloons.
While some senators praised Biden's decision to deflate the surveillance balloon on social media, others attacked how his administration handled the incident.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted in response to the incident, "I strongly condemn President Xi's audacious trespass into American airspace and I admire President Biden's leadership in pulling down the Chinese balloon over water to protect safety for all Americans."
The New York Democrat said, "Now we can gather the equipment and examine the technology used by the CCP.
There was no set timetable for how long the recovery would take, but the senior U.S. military official expected it would be brief.
The head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, tweeted, "Before it posed a threat to national security, the administration ought to have taken care of this. I'm hoping we can save the pieces so we can figure out what intelligence the CCP gathered while its spy balloon hovered over our nation for days. I'll be requesting clarification and holding the administrator responsible for this humiliating act of weakness."
After the balloon was shot down, a former Obama administration official advised the Biden administration to make it plain to China the seriousness of its violation of American airspace.
In a Saturday interview, Brett Bruen, who oversaw global engagement in the Obama administration, stated that Chinese President Xi Jinping is "probing and testing how far he can push the West and, in particular, Biden, and we have to answer in a robust and persistent way."
In order to oppose China's conduct, Bruen urged that the United States think about recalling Nicholas Burns, its ambassador to China.
.png)
.png)
0 Comments