The Pentagon claims that United States forces shot down the alleged Chinese spy balloon Saturday afternoon off the coast of South Carolina.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that President Biden on Wednesday had authorized a Chinese spy balloon shot down "as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon's path," NPR reported.
Military commanders had assessed that shooting down the Chinese balloon while over land presented an unreasonable danger to civilians over a large region relative to "the balloon's size and altitude and its surveillance payload," Austin added.
President Joe Biden informed the media on Saturday that he issued the order on Wednesday. He said that American authorities advised him to wait until it reached the safest spot to conduct the Chinese spy balloon shot down.
"They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it," Biden remarked.
On Saturday, defense officials also disclosed that the balloon had initially entered US territory on January 28, moved to Canadian territory three days later, and then returned to US airspace on January 31. The item was detected in Montana, a state in the US that is home to many highly sensitive nuclear missile bases.
A military source informed reporters that an F-22 jet fighter fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the high-altitude balloon, which crashed six nautical miles off the US coast at 14:39 EST (19:39 GMT), as per a BBC report.
East Coast Flights Resume
Shortly before the downing, the Federal Aviation Administration said that it had "paused departures from and arrivals at" three East Coast airports in Wilmington, North Carolina, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina to help the Department of Defense in a national security action. These airports resumed flights after 3 p.m.
The coast guard issued a similar warning, saying that military actions "create a considerable concern" to mariners.
Two sources informed on the case said the suspected Chinese spy balloon's remains would be transferred to an FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, for investigation by FBI specialists and intelligence organizations.
This afternoon, a high-ranking military official said that the Pentagon was working with the FBI and other agencies to categorize and analyze the "platform itself."
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Residents of coastal areas near where the Chinese spy balloon shot down in the Atlantic on Saturday have been warned against trying to recover any of the wreckage as a keepsake, according to CNN.
The local administration of Horry County, South Carolina, which contains Myrtle Beach, has warned that pieces of the balloon may wash up on the shore despite the efforts of the United States military to remove the trash from the water.
Authorities in Horry County warned residents not to "touch, move, or remove" any debris in a Facebook post.
The post claimed that tampering with such objects might compromise a federal probe.
Spy Balloon Incident May Increase US-China Tensions
After a suspected Chinese spy balloon crossed US airspace, Blinken announced the postponement of his trip to China, a major new development in US-China relations.
Blinken, who was set to fly to China on Friday evening, told a press conference that the high-altitude Chinese spy balloon over the continental US "established the conditions that undercut the trip's objective," per a pervious HNGN report.
Beijing said the alleged Chinese spy balloon was only meant for scientific purposes and drifted into US airspace by mistake.
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