U S. shoots down ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaskan airspace, White House says

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The balloon affair caused Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his planned trip to Beijing, which would have been the first by a U.S. secretary of state since Mike Pompeo’s visit in 2018. Instead, China and the U.S. have come to loggerheads over the alleged spy balloon program. The suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down last week was determined by the Pentagon to be traveling at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. Civilian aircraft, he added, usually operate around 40,000 to 45,000 feet and therefore the object presented a “threat to or a potential hazard to civilian air traffic.”

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A U.S. fighter jet shot down a mysterious, high-altitude object that traveled into American airspace Friday, acting on orders from President Joe Biden after it was determined the object posed a potential threat to commercial aviation. The officials also said that unlike the Chinese surveillance balloon, this high-altitude object was at the mercy of the winds, making its flight path unpredictable and therefore more dangerous to air traffic. The incident comes less than a week after a F-22 stealth fighter jet brought down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast. The discovery of the aircraft and subsequent shoot-down sparked a diplomatic standoff between Washington and Beijing.

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He said the “predominant” reason Biden ordered it shot down was the “safety” of flights traveling at that altitude and the fact that it was at the mercy of prevailing winds made its flight path less predictable. Fighter aircraft first saw it late Thursday night, it was a small object, and they were flying at high speed, he said. The site is about 130 miles from the border of Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter he had been briefed on the “object that violated American airspace” and “supported the decision to take action”. Helicopters and transport aircraft have been deployed to collect debris from the frozen waters of the Beaufort Sea.

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  1. Military officials determined that bringing it down over land from an altitude of 60,000 feet would pose an undue risk to people on the ground.
  2. Out of an abundance of caution, at the recommendation of the Pentagon, president Biden ordered the military to down the object,” he said.
  3. A U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object flying off the Alaskan coast Friday on the order of President Joe Biden.

The debris-recovery process is taking place amid a mix of ice and snow, and the response has involved Alaska-based units under the direction of U.S. Northern Command, along with the Alaskan National Guard, the Pentagon said Friday night. WASHINGTON — The U.S. military on Friday afternoon shot down a “high-altitude object” flying over Alaskan airspace and Arctic waters, National Security Council official John Kirby confirmed at the White House. The second shootdown comes after Congress skewered defense officials Thursday over their decision to allow the Chinese spy device to meander over Alaska, through Canadian airspace and across the continental US before shooting it down off Myrtle Beach on Feb. 4. The president was briefed on the presence of the object Thursday evening after two fighter jets surveilled it. The twin downings in such close succession are extraordinary, and reflect heightened concerns over China’s surveillance program and public pressure on Biden to take a tough stand against it.

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Northern Command said search and recovery operations have continued into the weekend. While it took a full week for the first spy balloon to be identified, publicized and taken down, officials took less than a day to shoot the new object out of the sky. US officials told ABC News that when fighters were scrambled, pilots saw no sign the object had propulsion. It was described as “cylindrical and silver-ish gray” and appeared to be floating, a US official told the outlet.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing on Friday that the “high altitude object” was tracked by the Pentagon over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours. U.S. intelligence recently established China’s aerial surveillance program, which included balloons of various sizes and capabilities. The balloons had been spotted in more than 40 countries across five continents. It’s not yet clear whether the aircraft that was shot down near Deadhorse, Alaska belonged to China or some other nation, Kirby said. But he noted it was much smaller than the 200 ft. balloon that the U.S. took out last week.

The command also said it’s continuing recovery efforts off the coast of South Carolina for the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down last week. He was advised that the best time for the operation would be when it was over water. Military officials determined that bringing it down over land from an altitude of 60,000 feet would pose an undue risk to people on the ground. The Pentagon on Friday declined to provide a more precise description of the object, only saying that U.S. pilots who flew up to observe it determined it didn’t appear to be manned. Officials said the object was far smaller than last week’s balloon, did not appear to be maneuverable and was traveling at a much lower altitude.

The balloon was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon has said. The U.S. has said Chinese balloons have flown over dozens of countries across five continents in recent years, and it learned more about the balloon program after closely monitoring the one shot down near South Carolina. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive national security matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. The unknown object was shot down in an area with harsh weather conditions and about six and a half hours of daylight at this time of year. Daytime temperatures Friday were about minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius).

Kirby said the U.S. does not know who owns the object, and he would not call it a balloon, like the one allegedly owned by the Chinese government that the U.S. military shot down Saturday. “Today at the Pentagon, United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and I participated in a call with NORAD Commander, General Glen VanHerck regarding a high-altitude object detected over Alaska. A plane operated by ConocoPhillips carrying workers from Anchorage to an oil field on Alaska’s North Slope had to turn back after receiving a restricted airspace warning from the Federal Aviation Administration, according to CNN. Though the surveillance balloon last week came from China, the US has not contacted Beijing to ask if the new object was theirs. Few towns dot Alaska’s North Slope, with the two apparently closest communities — Deadhorse and Kaktovik — combining for about 300 people.

“President Biden ordered the military to down the object and they did,” Kirby told reporters at the White House. The military is currently conducting a recovery operation to analyze the debris field, which is scattered across snow and ice in northern Alaska. WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. military fighter jet shot down an unknown object flying off the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday on orders from President Joe Biden, White House officials said.

Several US officials told the New York Times Friday that they believed the object was a balloon, but a Defense Department official said it broke into pieces when it slammed into the frozen sea, raising doubts. The development came almost a week after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America. China insisted the flyover was an accident involving a civilian craft and threatened repercussions. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a tweet Friday that he had been briefed and supported the decision. “Our military and intelligence services will always work together,” he said. A map showing the area of Alaska where an unidentified object was shot down by a US fighter jet on Friday.

U.S. officials did not understand the full purpose of the object, Kirby said, adding that the U.S. expects it will be able to recover the debris. “A recovery effort will be made, and we’re hopeful that it’ll be successful and then we can learn a little bit more about it,” he said. The object was first picked up on ground radar Thursday, prompting the military to scramble fighter jets to observe it from the air, Ryder said. Pilots determined the object was unmanned, and later used an F-22 to shoot it down after the president gave the go-ahead. U.S. officials, who said they were able to learn a lot about China’s spy balloon program by allowing it to traverse the U.S., even as it sought out sensitive locations, defended the decision to shoot down this latest object just about a day after it was first spotted. The incursion into U.S. airspace of the high-altitude object came less than a week after a Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down off the coast of the U.S. state of South Carolina, after it had traveled over much of the country.

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had been tracking the object over the last 24 hours, before it was downed. Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said NORAD first detected the aircraft via ground radar Thursday and “further investigated” it as it flew in a northeasterly direction. The recovery operation was taking place in a mix of ice and snow with active duty and National Guard units stationed in Alaska, the Pentagon said. He did not specify where exactly the object was shot down, but the Federal Aviation Administration said it had closed about 10 sq miles of US airspace airspace above Deadhorse, northern Alaska, before the F-22 fired. He said two fighter jets had approached the object and assessed there was nobody on board, and this information was available to Mr Biden when he made his decision.

U.S. Northern Command said in a statement that arctic weather conditions, including wind chill and limited daylight, were a factor in the search occurring on sea ice and that personnel were “adjusting recovery operations to maintain safety.” Kirby described the object as roughly the size of a small car, much smaller than the massive suspected Chinese spy balloon downed by Air Force fighter jets Saturday off the coast of South Carolina after it transited over sensitive military sites across the continental U.S. The incident comes a little under a week after a US fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina after the US military tracked its progress across US airspace for days. Pentagon and White House officials said U.S. planes approached the object, said to be the size of a small car, and determined that no human was in it before one of two F-22 fighter jets sent on an intercept course shot it from the skies with an AIM-9x Sidewinder missile.

“We do not know who owns it, whether it’s state owned or corporate owned or privately owned,” Mr Kirby said. While the Pentagon said last week that the balloon did not pose any physical or military threat to the U.S., it raised concerns about the possibility of collecting sensitive information and heightened tensions further between Beijing and Washington. The Pentagon said the object had been traveling in a northeasterly direction across Alaska when it was first discovered. President Joe Biden briefly commented on the matter in response to a question from reporters at the White House.

He said that the object was flying at 40,000ft (12,000m) over the northern coast of Alaska. Under Biden’s authority, the balloon was shot down by an F-22 Raptor with a Sidewinder missile. The Navy has since led an effort to collect its debris, which is being analyzed at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. The US has not yet determined the object’s “capabilities, purpose or origin,” Ryder said.

A U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object flying off the Alaskan coast Friday on the order of President Joe Biden. Biden has come under fire from Republicans — and some Democrats — for not acting sooner to shoot down a Chinese surveillance balloon, flying at 60,00 feet, that first entered U.S. airspace over Alaska Jan. 28. It eventually flew over the lower 48 states before being taken out off the South Carolina coast. “It came in, inside our territorial waters, those waters right now are frozen, but inside territorial airspace and over territorial waters. Fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command took down the object within the last hour,” Kirby said. Late on Friday, five Chinese companies and one research institute were added to the US government’s trade blacklist. Organisations were placed on the list for their alleged support of Chinese military aerospace programmes – including airships and balloons – the US Commerce Department announced.

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