Trudeau orders US warplane to shoot down unidentified object flying over northern Canada
- Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau ordered the shootdown a day after US planes took similar action over Alaska
- F-22 fighter jets have now downed three objects in the airspace above the US and Canada over seven days. One is believed to be a spy balloon from China
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday that on his order a US fighter jet shot down an unidentified object that was flying high over the Yukon, acting a day after the US took similar action over Alaska.
North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), the combined US-Canada organisation that provides shared defence of airspace over the two nations, said it had detected an object flying at a high altitude over northern Canada. It was not immediately clear how high up it was flying or what it was.
Trudeau said he also spoke to US President Joe Biden, who himself ordered the downing of an unidentified object over remote Alaska on Friday.
US shot down ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska, White House says
A spokesman, Major Olivier Gallant, said both Canadian and US jets operating as part of NORAD had been deployed. The jets were scrambled and it was a US jet that shot it down.
F-22 fighter jets have now downed three objects in the airspace above the US and Canada over seven days, a stunning development in the skies that is raising questions on just what, exactly, is hovering overhead and who has sent them.
At least one of the objects downed was believed to be a spy balloon from China, but the other two have not yet been identified. Trudeau said that Canadian forces would recover the wreckage for study.
The down came a day after White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said an object roughly the size of a small car was shot down in remote Alaska. Officials could not say if it contained any surveillance equipment, where it came from or what purpose it had.
Kirby said it was shot down because it was flying at about 40,000ft (13,000 metres) and posed a “reasonable threat” to the safety of civilian flights, not because of any knowledge that it was engaged in surveillance.
According to US Northern Command, recovery operations continued on Saturday on sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska.
In a statement, the Northern Command said there were no new details on what the object was. It said the Alaska Command and the Alaska National Guard, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement, were conducting search and recovery.
“Arctic weather conditions, including wind chill, snow, and limited daylight, are a factor in this operation, and personnel will adjust recovery operations to maintain safety,” the statement said.
US adds Chinese entities linked to ‘spy balloon’ to export blacklist
Last Saturday, US officials shot down a large white balloon off the coast of South Carolina.
The balloon was part of a large surveillance programme that China has been conducting for “several years,” the Pentagon has said. The US has said Chinese balloons have flown over dozens of countries across five continents in recent years, and it learned more about the balloon programme after closely monitoring the one shot down near South Carolina.
China responded that it reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticised the US for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”
The Navy continued survey and recovery activities on the ocean floor off South Carolina, and the coastguard was providing security. Additional debris was pulled out on Friday, and additional operations will continue as weather permits, Northern Command said
