The US says it has recovered critical sensors from the suspected Chinese spy balloon it shot down over US airspace on February 4. The Chinese balloon, which Beijingsaid maintains was a civilian-use balloon intended for meteorology research, spent a week drifting over the US and Canada before President Joe Biden ordered it to be shot down off the South Carolina coast. The US military’s northern command said in a statement: “Crews have been able to recover significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified as well as large sections of the structure.”
The discovery comes after a further three unidentified objects were shot down over North American airspace.
The US Navy has been conducting an all-underwater search for the remnants of the massive balloon that a US fighter jet shot down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4.
The debris collected was being hauled by small boats to a few area locations, including a Coast Guard station south of Myrtle Beach – a vacation resort on South Carolina’s Atlantic coast, and, depending on the size, was being transported either to the FBI lab at Quantico, Virginia, or other sites where experts can analyse it.
According to the Biden administration, the China balloon shot down was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program that targeted more than 40 countries, the Biden administration declared Thursday, citing imagery from American U-2 spy planes.
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