WASHINGTON – The US military shot down a second “high-altitude object” in American airspace, this time off the coast of Alaska on Friday, the White House announced.
The mission comes less than a week after a high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina.
White House spokesman John Kirby was hesitant to call the plane a balloon, saying “we call it an object because it’s the best description we have right now.” He also said US officials did not yet know which country or group was responsible.
The object was destroyed by a missile from an F-22 fighter jet off the coast of northeast Alaska, Kirby said at a White House press briefing.
The US military first became aware of the object on Thursday night. President Joe Biden ordered the firing on Friday morning, which took place shortly after noon.
Raytheon’s infrared guided air-to-air missile is mounted on one of the 3rd Wing’s F-15C Eagle jets at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska. On Saturday, February 4, 2023, when a Chinese surveillance balloon flew over US airspace about 6 nautical miles off the coast of South Carolina, a single F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, flying at an altitude of 58,000 feet. , fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder into it.
Mark Farmer | AP
The craft was flying at an altitude of about 40,000 feet, which was lower than last week’s balloon, and was about the size of a small car, he said.
Unlike the balloon shot down on Saturday, the latest object lacked maneuverability, Kirby said.
Last week’s spy balloon was the size of three school buses, according to Pentagon officials. An advanced surveillance craft with propellers that give it maneuverability, the balloon carries a payload the size of a jetliner.
The latest incident is also very different from the previous ones as this floating object was shot within hours of its detection.
Larger balloons were previously allowed to float in the United States for a week before Biden gave the order to shoot them down.
The Pentagon defended the decision at a Senate hearing on Thursday, telling lawmakers that the spy balloon’s main value to the US military is what it can learn from the flight and debris courses.
Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 find a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, February 5, 2023.
Photo: US Navy
“An important part of the calculus for this operation is the ability to survive, understand and exploit the capabilities of high altitude balloons,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense Melissa Dalton.
Another factor that influenced the decision to keep the previous balloon in the air was that it floated at an altitude of about 60,000 feet, and did not pose a direct threat to civilian aircraft. Commercial airlines usually cruise at an altitude of 35,000 feet.
The object shot down on Friday was hovering at just 40,000 feet, but posed what the White House called a “substantial threat” to air safety.
A Pentagon spokesman said there was a rescue operation for the latest object has been carried out, but it has been threatened by the rough seas in the Arctic Ocean that make diving particularly perilous.