Spy Balloon in US before and after getting shot. Source: Agencies
New York: The US says that the alleged Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down on Saturday potentially carried explosives “to detonate and destroy” itself.
US Northern Command Chief General Glen VanHerch told a journalist from Politico that the alleged Chinese spy balloon was “up to 200 feet (around 61 metres) tall, with a payload the size of a jetliner. It weighed ‘in excess of a couple thousand lbs’ and potentially carried explosives’ to detonate and destroy the balloon.”
‘Domain awareness gap’
Talking about the previous incidents of Chinese spy balloons flying over the US skies, VanHerch said: “We did not detect those threats and that’s a domain awareness gap.”
He added that the intelligence community, after the fact, assessed those threats through “additional means of collection”.
Chinese spy balloon shot down
The alleged Chinese spy balloon, almost of the size of three buses, that transited through the US airspace was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, on Saturday, a week after it entered US airspace.
The balloon was shot down by a F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile.
The Chinese spy balloon first entered US airspace on 28 January and moved largely over land across Alaska before moving into Canadian airspace on 30 January. It re-entered US airspace on 31 January, a US defense official said.
Also Read: China accuses US of indiscriminate use of force over balloon
US President Joe Biden said he gave the order to shoot a Chinese spy balloon on Wednesday but military officials waited until Saturday to do so.
China, meanwhile, denied the allegations, accusing the US of indiscriminate use of force, saying shooting down of the balloon had “seriously impacted and damaged both sides’ efforts and progress in stabilising Sino-US relations.”
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