The United States shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon off the Carolina coast on Saturday, a US official said, prompting tense exchanges between the two countries.
According to a senior defense official, an F-22 Raptor shot down the balloon at 2:39 pm with a single missile. It was between 60,000 and 65,000 feet in the air when it shot down.
The action came hours after President Joe Biden responded to a reporter who asked whether the U.S. will kill the balloon. In his first public comments about the balloon, Biden said, “We’ll take care of it.”
Speaking to reporters after the balloon was shot down, Biden said he ordered the Pentagon after being informed on Wednesday.
“They decided – without harming anyone on the ground – they decided the best time to do this was when the water was gone,” he said. “He successfully took it down and I want to congratulate our aviators who did it. And we’ll have a report on that in a little while.”
The US and China exchanged strong words after the balloon was shot down, with China’s foreign ministry expressing “strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the use of force” by the US in a statement.
“The Chinese side categorically requested the US side to properly handle the situation in a calm, professional and restrained manner,” the statement said.
“The Chinese side will fully protect the legitimate rights and interests of the companies concerned, while reserving the right to make further necessary responses,” the statement said.
The ministry has said the balloon was a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes,” and that it entered US airspace due to force majeure, a point the ministry denied on Saturday. reiterated in its statement, calling it a “completely accidental situation”
A senior administration official responded to China’s statement on Saturday, doubling down on the position that the balloon was a surveillance balloon that “intentionally” crossed the US and Canada “and we believe it was monitoring sensitive military sites”. was demanding to do.”
The administration official said in a statement to NBC News that the balloon that was shot down and the second balloon seen over Latin America both have unusual monitoring equipment for “standard meteorological activities or civilian research” and flight patterns and video motors. And show the propeller. , which means they can be maneuvered.
“In fact, these balloons are part of the PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries,” the senior official said. “Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have been seen in countries across the first five continents.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the balloon was shot down “over US territorial waters” off the coast of South Carolina.
“This afternoon, at the direction of President Biden, US fighter jets assigned to the US Northern Command successfully shot down a high-altitude surveillance balloon launched by the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” Austin said in the statement.
“The balloon, being used by the PRC in an attempt to survey strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought over US territorial waters,” he said.
Biden on Wednesday gave his authorization to “take down the balloon as quickly as possible to accomplish the mission without undue risk to American lives under the path of the balloon,” he said. “After careful analysis, US military commanders determined the balloon was shot down while the balloon’s size and height on land and its surveillance payload posed an unreasonable risk to people in a wide area.”
A senior US military official told NBC News that the debris from the balloon stretched for about 7 nautical miles, and that ships and Navy divers are expected to help recover the pieces.