US shoots down airship over Atlantic after China balloon

• President Xi Jinping hasn’t ruled out using force if necessary to accomplish this.
• The proposal to bring the balloon down was initially approved by President Biden on Wednesday.
• The US Federal Aviation Administration temporarily halted all commercial flights at three airports.

The US claims that a huge Chinese blimp that was allegedly spying on important military installations around the country was shot down.

The balloon was knocked down over US territorial seas, according to the Department of Defense’s fighter jets.

The US’s use of force to destroy civilian unmanned aircraft was later met with “strong displeasure and protest” by China’s foreign ministry.

After a tiny explosion, the balloon was shown on US TV networks descending into the ocean.

At 14:39 EST (19:39 GMT), an F-22 jet fighter fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the high-altitude balloon, which caused it to crash six nautical miles off the US coast.

Defense sources told US media that the debris landed in shallower water than they had anticipated—47 feet (14 meters)—near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Currently, the military is working to recover debris that is dispersed over a seven-mile area (11km). There are two naval ships nearby, one of which has a large crane for rescue.

Despite taking all necessary precautions to prevent the PRC [China] surveillance balloon from gathering sensitive information, a senior US defense official stated in a Pentagon statement that “the surveillance balloon’s over flight of US territory was of intelligence value to us.”

We were able to examine the balloon and its apparatus, which was helpful, the official continued.

Since the beginning of Thursday’s tracking announcement by defense authorities, US President Joe Biden has been under pressure to shoot it down.

Afterward, Mr. Biden said: “I want to commend our aviators who did it. They successfully knocked it down.”

After verifying that the blimp was for civilian use and had entered the US due to force majeure, the Chinese foreign ministry issued a statement saying: “The Chinese side has repeatedly notified the US side that the airship is for civilian purpose and that it was entirely an accident.”

The balloon’s discovery sparked a diplomatic crisis, leading US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his weekend trip to China in protest of the “irresponsible behavior.”

The Chinese government denied that it was a spy plane and claimed that it was a weather ship that got out of control.

In response to the event, Taiwan’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying: “A civilized international community should not allow the Chinese Communist Party government’s activities that violate international law and violate the airspace and sovereignty of other countries.”

China views Taiwan as a breakaway province that would eventually fall under Beijing’s sovereignty. Taiwan is self-governing. President Xi Jinping hasn’t ruled out using force if necessary to accomplish this.

Taiwan, meanwhile, views itself as an independent country with a democratically elected government and its own constitution.

The proposal to bring the balloon down was initially approved by President Biden on Wednesday, but the Pentagon later announced that it had chosen to wait until the device was over water in order to avoid putting people on the ground in danger.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily halted all commercial flights at three airports along the South Carolina coast on Saturday afternoon due to a “national security endeavor,” which created the foundation for the operation.

Due to military actions “that offer a major hazard,” the coast guard also recommended vessels to evacuate the area.

Before the missile was fired, three fighter jets were seen hovering, according to Hayley Walsh, an eyewitness on the coast, and then “we heard a loud boom, the house rocked.”

According to a senior military officer, recovering the debris should be “pretty easy” and might take only a “brief period of time.” The person went on to say that “competent Navy divers” might be sent in to help with the mission.

On Saturday, defense officials also disclosed that the balloon had initially entered US airspace on January 28 near the Aleutian Islands, moved to Canadian airspace three days later, and then returned to US airspace on January 31. The US state of Montana, which has a lot of sensitive nuclear missile facilities, is where the object was discovered.

The event has worsened US-China relations, according to the Pentagon, which also referred to it as a “unacceptable violation” of US sovereignty.

The top US diplomat, Mr. Blinken, called it “an irresponsible act” in Beijing before his now-cancelled trip there on February 5 and 6. It would have been the first significant high-level US-China summit there in years.

China, however, attempted to downplay the cancellation of his travel, claiming in a statement released on Saturday that neither party had formally announced a trip.

Beijing “would not accept any baseless supposition or exaggeration,” the foreign ministry of China declared, and it accused “certain politicians and media in the United States” of using the incident “as a pretext to attack and slander China.”

The Pentagon announced on Friday that a second Chinese surveillance balloon had been sighted over Latin America, with sightings over Venezuela and Costa Rica being reported.

According to Colombia’s Air Force, a balloon-like object was discovered on February 3 in the nation’s airspace at a height of more than 55,000 feet.

It adds that it did not pose a threat to national security and that it followed the item until it departed the airspace. China has not yet made any official remarks regarding the alleged second balloon.

Also Read

PM Shehbaz urges further unity to infuse vigour, strength to Kashmir cause

MUZAFFARABAD: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday stressed upon forging of...