Balloons fly in the sky over Billings, Montana, USA February 1, 2023, in this image taken from social media.
Chase Doak via Reuters
The US military on Saturday shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon it suspected had been flying over the country for days.
In a statement on Saturday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that US fighter jets assigned to the US Northern Command successfully brought down the balloon at the direction of President Joe Biden. Lloyd said the balloon was used by the People’s Republic of China “in an effort to monitor strategic sites in the continental United States.”
Biden authorized Wednesday to take down the balloon as soon as possible “without undue risk to American lives in the balloon’s path,” Lloyd said.
“In accordance with the President’s directive, the Department of Defense is developing options to safely take down balloons in our territorial waters, while carefully monitoring their passage and intelligence collection activities,” he said in a statement.
TV footage showed the high-altitude balloon, which was about the size of three school buses, burst into small bursts before falling into the water. Officials will try to recover the debris, according to NBC News.
The sight of what is believed to be a Chinese spy balloon being shot down, seen from Holden Beach, USA
Allison Joyce Reuters
The Federal Aviation Administration issued ground stops in parts of North Carolina and South Carolina and closed additional airspace Saturday afternoon. The departure was halted “to support the Department of Defense in its national security efforts,” a representative told CNBC. normal operations began resuming later in the afternoon, the The FAA said on Twitter.
Biden kept quiet about the balloons for the first time on Saturday, telling a group of reporters, “We’ll take care of it.” In the evening, he told reporters that he had instructed officials to “shoot” on Wednesday, but that he wanted to wait until it was safe.
“They succeeded in eliminating it, and I want to commend the aviators who did it,” Biden said. “And we’ll have another report on that later.”
The balloon was first spotted in Billings, Montana, on Wednesday. Defense officials said the Pentagon considered firing the balloons earlier this week but decided against it after briefing Biden. The decision was made in consultation with senior leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Biden concluded that the U.S. would not shoot down the balloon because the debris could cause damage to the ground, Pentagon officials said. Additionally, any information collected by the balloon would have “limited additive value” compared to China’s spy satellites.
China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that the balloon was a civilian weather airship intended for scientific research that was blown up. It described the incident as the result of an irresponsible “force majeure”.
This claim was dismissed by US officials. A senior Pentagon official told reporters Thursday night that the object was clearly a surveillance balloon flying over sensitive sites to gather intelligence.
“We have noted the PRC’s statement of regret, but the presence of this balloon in our airspace is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law and it is unacceptable that this happened,” the official said.
The balloon’s presence prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone what would have been an already tense trip to China on Friday.
The visit is intended to strengthen communication and cooperation between the two countries as tensions rise over China’s growing military aggression against Taiwan and its closer alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, Blinken told the director of China’s Foreign Office, Wang Yi, in a phone call on Friday that the balloon was “an irresponsible act and a violation of US sovereignty and international law that undermines the purpose of the trip,” according to a read from the discussion.
—CNBC’s Christina Wilkie and Amanda Macias contributed to this report