US Navy releases photos of Chinese spy balloon recovery effort
The recovery effort of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that US fighter planes shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday was documented in images published by the US Navy on Tuesday.
The Sunday images show sailors from a Navy explosive disposal crew loading the balloon's trash onto a boat. In order to better understand the capabilities of the balloon, the US is analyzing the collected debris in an FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
The balloon was around 200 feet tall and had a cargo that weighed more than a few thousand pounds, Gen. Glen VanHerck, chief of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), told reporters on Monday.
By the time the balloon arrived in the skies over Montana, US authorities had been monitoring it for a number of days. The balloon posed a risk to people and property on the ground, according to officials, despite President Joe Biden's claims over the weekend that he had ordered the US military to shoot it down as soon as it was safe to do so.
"From a safety perspective, imagine yourself in a situation where heavy objects that weigh hundreds or even thousands of pounds are descending from the sky. VanHerck stated, "That's basically what we're talking about. Glass from solar panels, potentially dangerous materials, such as those needed for batteries to function in this environment, and even the potential for explosives to detonate and deflate any possible balloons are all examples.
Additionally, US officials found that the balloon's capacity for gathering intelligence did not constitute a serious threat.
From the perspective of intelligence gathering, the balloon provided "little incremental value," according to a senior defence official last week. However, VanHerck claimed on Monday that he and the head of the US Strategic Command exercised "extreme caution" to stop China from gathering intelligence.
Petty Officer 1st Class Tyler Thompson/US Navy
He continued by saying that the US was able to turn the tables and obtain intelligence on the balloon itself because the balloon was discovered in time.
According to VanHerck, "[T]his allowed us the chance to analyze what they were actually doing, what kind of capabilities were on the balloon, what kind of transmission capabilities existed. I think you'll see in the future that that time frame was well worth its value to collect over."
On Saturday afternoon, a single missile fired from an F-22 fighter plane leaving Langley Air Force Base in Virginia eventually brought the balloon to an end. According to the captions of the Navy's photos, the operation was carried out by active duty, Reserve, National Guard, and civilian troops.
China, which insisted the balloon was a weather balloon, rebuked the US for its actions.
On Sunday, Tan Keefe, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense, claimed that the US had "used force to assault our civilian unmanned airship, which is an apparent overreaction."