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National Security Council spokesman John Kirby discussing the downed object on Friday. Photo: AP

US shot down ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska, White House says

  • President Biden issued order ‘out of an abundance of caution’, says National Security Council spokesman John Kirby
  • US does not know who owns the object, which was flying at 40,000 feet and posed ‘reasonable threat’ to safety of civilian flights, Kirby adds
The US has shot down an unmanned high-altitude object over Alaska, the White House said on Friday, barely a week after US President Joe Biden ordered the Pentagon to bring down a Chinese balloon that it deemed to be a surveillance tool.

The North American Aerospace Command, also known as Norad, had been tracking that object since Thursday, according to the Pentagon.

“Fighter aircraft assigned to the US Northern Command took down the object,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing. The Pentagon said an F-22 shot down the object at 1.45pm Eastern Standard Time.

Kirby said the object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet (12,000 metres) over Alaska and posed a “reasonable threat” to the safety of civilian flight.

02:34

Chinese balloon row: Joe Biden says US-China relations have not taken a big hit

Chinese balloon row: Joe Biden says US-China relations have not taken a big hit

“Out of an abundance of caution at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object and they did,” Kirby said.

The new object and its downing appeared to extend the Chinese balloon saga that has escalated tensions between Washington and Beijing and drawn furious criticism of Biden from Republicans.

Alaska is also where US officials first detected the balloon and its payload on January 28. But they did not shoot it down until it reached the Atlantic Ocean, just off the South Carolina coast, last Saturday following a week-long transit across the continent.

The US concluded that the balloon was part of a global surveillance programme China has developed for years, one which might have affected some 40 countries around the world.

US only ‘recently’ concluded Chinese balloons used for global spying: Pentagon

Asked why the Pentagon did not wait as long to shoot down the object, Brigadier General Pat Ryder said at a briefing Friday that each case had to be evaluated “on its own merits”.

Given that civilian aircraft operated at “a variety of ranges up to 40,000 to 45,000 feet”, he said it was more urgent to take it down. The Chinese balloon detected last week, in contrast, operated at about 60,000 feet, according to the Pentagon.

Ryder said the object fell into the frozen US territorial waters off the coast of Alaska, and that Norad has begun recovery operations.

The Pentagon has not reached out to its Chinese counterpart regarding this new incident, and Kirby said the US did not know who owned the new object.

Kirby said the object was “the size of a small car” and “much, much smaller” than the balloon the US downed last Saturday.

US Navy sailors recover a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon downed over US territorial waters off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Sunday. Photo: US Fleet Forces/US Navy via Reuters

The object had no significant payload, nor did it have the same manoeuvring capability as that balloon, he said.

“We don’t have any information that would confirm a stated purpose for this object,” he said.

Kirby added that the debris field for the object was expected to be “much, much smaller” than that for the balloon, and both the location within US territorial space and the frozen water could help the recovery work.

“We’re hopeful that it’ll be successful and then we can learn a little bit more about it,” Kirby said.

Biden, asked about the downing of the object while on his way to greet Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the White House, simply said, “It was a success”.

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