(Washington) The American army shot down on Saturday, on the orders of President Joe Biden, the Chinese balloon which had been flying over the United States for several days, causing great tension between Washington and Beijing.
The F-22 fighter jet operation took place “over water off the coast of South Carolina in United States airspace,” the Secretary of State said in a statement. American Defense, Lloyd Austin. He stressed that it was carried out in response to an “unacceptable violation” of American “sovereignty”.
PHOTO GEOFF ROBINS, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
An F-22 Raptor fighter
The Pentagon claims it was a spy balloon. The balloon “was being used by the People’s Republic of China in an attempt to monitor strategic sites” in the United States, Austin said.
Mr. Biden congratulated the pilots who carried out “successfully” this delicate operation. He said he had given the order on Wednesday to shoot down the balloon “as soon as possible”, but that the Pentagon wanted to wait “for the safest place to do so” in order to avoid any damage to the ground when the balloon fell. any debris.
Recovery operations, which may involve divers, were now underway. The debris is in shallow water, “that’s going to make it pretty easy,” a senior military official said.
On videos broadcast by television channels on Saturday, the ball appeared to fall vertically after an impact.
At the time of being shot down, the balloon was about 18 kilometers above sea level, and a distance of 11 kilometers from the coast, according to Pentagon officials.
Shortly before, air traffic had been suspended at three airports in the southeastern United States as a “national security” measure, the American civil aviation regulator (FAA) announced. It was one airport in North Carolina and two in South Carolina. Traffic resumed shortly after the operation ended.
“After careful analysis, U.S. military commanders determined that shooting down the balloon while it was above the ground posed an undue risk to people. […]given the size and altitude of the balloon and its surveillance cargo,” the Secretary of Defense said.
This is why the army waited to be able to shoot it down “safely above our territorial waters, while closely monitoring its route and its information-gathering activities”, he added.
PHOTO ELIZABETH FRANZ, REUTERS
Joe Biden answered questions from reporters upon his arrival at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York.
“Analyze Technology”
This affair, which has cast a chill over relations between Washington and Beijing, has caused the postponement of a visit by the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken to China.
Antony Blinken’s visit to China would have been the first by a US secretary of state since October 2018.
According to Pentagon officials, the balloon first entered US airspace on January 28 over Alaska, before entering Canada on January 30, then re-entering airspace. American in Idaho, in the northwestern United States, on January 31, i.e. Tuesday.
But the Americans only learned of the balloon’s existence on Thursday, when it was over Montana, which is home to nuclear missile silos. The machine then gradually headed towards the east of the country.
On Saturday morning, US President Joe Biden said that the United States would “deal” with this ball. Then at the start of the afternoon, Mr. Biden, to whom journalists asked if he was going to give the order to shoot him, had responded by raising his thumb.
Beijing acknowledged that it was indeed a device from China, but assured that it was a “civilian aircraft, used for research purposes, mainly meteorological”.
The machine would have “deviated from its trajectory”, added a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressing the “regrets” of his country for this “involuntary” violation of American airspace.
“I salute President Biden’s leadership for shooting the Chinese balloon over water to keep all Americans safe,” Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted on Saturday. “Now we can collect the equipment and analyze the technology used” by China, he added.
On Friday, the Pentagon said a second Chinese balloon had been spotted over Latin America.
“Chinese surveillance balloons briefly passed over the United States at least three times during the previous administration, and once at the beginning of this administration as far as we know, but never for this long,” said an official on Saturday. senior American official.