U.S. Air Force F22 Raptor shoots down Chinese spy balloon over Atlantic Ocean
On February 4, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced that a U.S. Air Force fighter safely shot down a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon, according to a statement released by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. The balloon was brought down by a single shot from a U.S. F22 Raptor, “about 6 nautical miles off the coast near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,” according to the Associated Press.
President Joe Biden ordered the action on Wednesday, but it was delayed until the balloon was over water off the coast of South Carolina to ensure no Americans on the ground were harmed.
“The balloon, which was being used by the People’s Republic of China in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above U.S. territorial waters,” Austin said.
The high-altitude balloon, more commonly referred to as the Chinese Spy Balloon, was first spotted over Billings, Montana, on Wednesday. Since then, it was making its way east over the U.S. and was finally shot down once it got over the Atlantic Ocean at a point where it no longer posed a threat to being brought down over populated areas. The balloon was shot down approximately six miles off the coast in about 47 feet of water, and no one was hurt, according to the DoD.
And this isn’t the first time that Chinese Spy Balloons have appeared over the U.S. It also happened three times during the Trump administration, according to The Business Insider.
Officials are now working to recover the remnants of the downed balloon which involves about a seven-mile debris field. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels are taking part in the operation. There is no estimate for how long the recovery mission will take, a military spokesperson said, but the fact that it came down in such a shallow area should make recovery “fairly easy”.
The U.S. Department of Defense shared that the U.S. F22 fired a single Sidewinder missile at the balloon from an altitude of 58,000 feet. The balloon at the time was between 60,000 and 65,000 feet above the ground.
For more on the shooting down of the Chinese Spy Balloon, see the video accompanying this article.
(Cover Photo: Defence_XP / Twitter)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today / Follow Richard on Facebook. Twitter & Instagram
