US shoots down high-altitude object over Alaska

The object was flying at 40,000 feet and posed a threat to civilians, White House officials say.

The U.S. military downed a “high-altitude object” spotted in the sky over Alaska, the White House said Friday, the second time in less than a week that an Air Force jet fired on a craft that had intruded into US airspace.

The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a “reasonable threat to the safety of civilians,” John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters at the White House.

The object didn’t initially appear to belong to a government, a defense official said. The US sent up F-35s to survey the object, the Pentagon said. The object was first spotted north of Anchorage, and it traveled northeast, defense officials said.

The military downed the object in US territorial waters at the recommendation of President Biden, Mr Kirby said. Mr Biden was briefed on the matter Thursday night and gave the order to shoot down the object on Friday morning. In brief remarks at the White House on Friday afternoon, the president called the operation a success.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on Twitter that he was briefed on the matter and supported Mr Biden’s decision to shoot down the object.

US officials said the Biden administration didn’t yet know who owned the object and that it didn’t appear to have a sophisticated capacity to maneuver, and appeared to be unmanned. The US planned to recover the debris, which landed on ice in northeastern Alaska. That location could “make it easier for us to try to recover some of the debris,” Mr Kirby said.

The US first learned about the object Thursday night, officials said. The US hadn’t attempted to reach out to China, Mr Kirby said, as officials did last week when a suspected Chinese spy balloon was spotted traveling across the US The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Later Friday, the US Commerce Department added six Chinese companies it said were involved in the balloon program to its so-called entity list, which bars US companies from supplying them.

The action was another step by the Biden administration to restrict exports of Western technology that China could use to advance its military capabilities. The Biden administration last year slapped export controls on manufacturing equipment China could use to develop advanced semiconductors needed for cutting-edge military systems.

In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration monitors and controls airspace up to 60,000 feet for commercial and military traffic. Broad international agreement exists that the airspace under 60,000 feet is the dominion of the nation that controls the ground below it.

The FAA said Friday it had closed some airspace in northern Alaska to support Department of Defense activities.

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby.

Commercial jetliners cruise between 35,000 and 40,000 feet. Alaskan airspace is relatively uncrowded, but it has become busier since the closure of air routes through Russia following sanctions imposed last year, especially for planes traveling between Western Europe and northeast Asia.

The Pentagon said Air Force aircraft were over the recovery site. Tracking site Flightradar24 showed an Air Force HC-130J aircraft flying offshore around an area northeast of Prudhoe Bay.

The Pentagon declined to further describe the object’s appearance. Fighter aircraft had conducted two flights -- one on Thursday and another earlier Friday -- to assess the object. It was downed at 1:45 p.m. ET on Friday, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said. The object entered US airspace on Thursday, he said.

Mr Kirby said the object was about the size of a car, smaller than the suspected Chinese spy balloon that the US downed on Feb. 4. The balloon was about 200 feet long and carried a payload roughly the size of a jetliner, Pentagon officials said. Gen. Ryder later said the object was the size of a small car.

As with Saturday’s downing of the alleged Chinese balloon, an F-22 brought the object down on Friday, US officials said, using the same kind of missile, an AIM-9X Sidewinder.

The discovery late last month of the Chinese balloon, which traveled across the continental US for several days, set off renewed tensions between Washington and Beijing, and prompted criticism of Mr Biden from Republican lawmakers. Some in the GOP have said the Biden administration should have shot down the balloon earlier, when it flew over the Aleutian Islands or other parts of Alaska.

China has said the balloon was used for “research, mainly meteorological, purposes” and had blown off course, and that the US has overreacted to the incident.

On Thursday, officials from the Pentagon, State Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation released new information they intended to bolster the US’s assertion that the Chinese balloon was used for surveillance.

Images captured by high-altitude U-2 surveillance planes showed that the balloon was equipped with multiple antennas, including an array likely capable of pinpointing the location of communications, a senior State Department official said. Those U-2 and other reconnaissance flights also found that the balloon carried large solar panels capable of powering an array of intelligence collection sensors. The manufacturer of the balloon has a direct relationship with the Chinese military, the State Department official said.

Biden administration officials have identified at least four previous flights by Chinese surveillance balloons above the continental US that went undetected until after leaving American airspace. Three of those flights occurred during the Trump administration and one took place early in the Biden administration.

The military command in charge of US air defenses failed to detect the previous suspected Chinese surveillance balloons and learned about them later from intelligence agencies.

The Wall Street Journal