The balloon, which the Pentagon claims was a spy balloon, was shot down by the US military off the east coast of the United States, according to Fox News and CNN.
We saw a small explosion on CNN and Fox News. Then, the balloon deflates and falls vertically before falling into the sea off the coast of Carolina.
Fox News airs live footage of the Chinese spy balloon coming down after it was shot.
“First of all, well done!” Gen. Jack Keane exclaims while watching it float down. pic.twitter.com/QYkxQhJpNf
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 4, 2023
An operation has been set up to recover its debris at sea, reports our correspondent in New York, Carrie Nooten.
It was Joe Biden who gave the order to shoot it down once the airship was above the water, and no longer presented a danger to residents on the ground. His Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also felt it would have been too risky to target him flying over the country. It was still the size of three buses end to end.
” This afternoon, by order of President (Joe) Biden, an American fighter plane (…) successfully shot down a high-altitude spy balloon, which belonged to the People’s Republic of China, in the airspace above the coast of South Carolina said Lloyd Austin in a statement. His presence constituted a unacceptable violation of American sovereignty, he also said. President Joe Biden congratulated the pilots who shot down the balloon.
Suspension of air traffic at three airports
All these details are certainly intended to calm the ardor of the opposition, because the Republicans multiplied the calls to shoot down the machine. Police in one town in North Carolina even had to ask people not to try to aim their own guns at the balloon, which was flying 18,000 meters anyway. For now, authorities remain information-starved about what they know about the information the balloon was collecting.
Shortly before, air traffic had been suspended at three airports in the southeastern United States as a measure ” national security “announced the regulator of the American civil aviation (FAA). It was one airport in North Carolina and two in South Carolina.
On Saturday morning, US President Joe Biden said the United States would “ take care of this balloon. Then at the beginning of the afternoon, the American president to whom journalists asked if he was going to give the order to shoot down the balloon, had replied by simply giving a thumbs up.
A chill in China-US relations
This affair, which cast a chill over relations between Washington and Beijing, provoked the postponement of a visit by the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken in China. Beijing acknowledged that it was indeed a device from China, but assured that it was a ” civil aircraft, used for research purposes, mainly meteorological “.
The craft would have deviated from its trajectory “added a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressing the” regret “of his country for this violation” involuntary of US airspace. A second Chinese balloon has been spotted over Latin America, the Pentagon announced on Friday.
(And with AFP)