The U.S. military brought down the Chinese surveillance balloon on Saturday afternoon once it reached the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast after it traveled across the continental United States.
President Joe Biden authorized the military to bring it down on Wednesday once it was deemed to safe to do so, which defense officials determined would not be until it was no longer over U.S. territory, according to a Saturday afternoon statement from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that confirmed the a U.S. fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command successfully shot it down. He noted it “was being used by the PRC in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States.”
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One F-22 “fired a single missile into the balloon causing it to crash into the ocean,” a senior defense official told reporters on Saturday after the balloon was shot down. The official said there was no indication anyone was hurt in the mission, while the military is now looking to gather the debris in the Atlantic Ocean, though its unknown how long the recovery effort could take.
A senior military official said much of the debris fell into “47 feet of water” making the recovery effort potentially easier than they expected.
The balloon first entered U.S. airspace last Saturday, but then crossed into Canadian airspace until Tuesday when it reentered U.S. airspace over Idaho, before it became publicized over Montana the next day, according to the senior defense official. The balloon traveled across the country, heading through Montana on Thursday before spotted in Kansas on Friday, according to Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), and then traveled over the Carolinas. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop and cleared airspace around three airports on Saturday shortly after 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Senior U.S. defense officials determined that it was not safe to shoot the balloon down over the continental United States due to concerns about potentially harming civilians or civilian property. But, by allowing the Chinese spy contraption to fly over the U.S. for a couple days, the military has been able to gather new intelligence about their technology and capabilities.
“This balloon was clearly crossing over sensitive sites, including sensitive military sites. And so we took additional precautions to make sure that whatever added Intel value would be minimized,” the senior defense official added. “I would also note that while we take all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon collection of sensitive information to surveillance balloons overflight of US territory was of intelligence value to us. I can’t go into more detail but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable.”
Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Friday that the balloon, which was at about 60,000 feet over the ground, “has the ability to maneuver” itself and has “changed its course,” seemingly contradicting the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s claim that the civilian aircraft simply deviated off course.
“The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed Friday. “Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure.”
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The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that it was tracking another suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over Latin America, while the senior defense official said this was the second such incursion of U.S. airspace under the Biden administration, and that it happened “at least two times” under the previous administration, though for a shorter period of time. The official did not provide more details on the previous occurrences.
“These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries. These kinds of activities are often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army or PLA,” the defense official explained. “Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia and Europe.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his upcoming trip to Beijing in response to the incident.
