February 4, 2023 US shoots down Chinese spy balloon off East Coast

Our live coverage of the suspected Chinese spy balloon has moved here.

A senior US defense official said Saturday there were three instances during the Trump administration when China briefly flew a surveillance balloon over the continental United States.

The “PRC (People’s Republic of China) government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time,” the defense official said.

Mark Esper, the former Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump, told ‘CNN This Morning’ on Friday that he was “surprised” by the Pentagon’s statement that similar incidents had happened during the Trump administration.

Esper served as Secretary of Defense under Trump from July 23, 2019, through November 9, 2020. He served as Acting Secretary of Defense from June 24, 2019, to July 15, 2019.

The Colombian Air Force has confirmed that an object with “characteristics similar to a balloon” was detected in its airspace on February 3.

The air force said in a statement Friday it is coordinating with other “countries and institutions” to establish the origin of the balloon, which has already left Colombia’s airspace after being tracked by its National Defense System.

The object was detected in the early hours of February 3 at above 55,000 feet, “in the northern sector of the country, moving at an average speed of 25 knots,” the statement said.

When US President Joe Biden learned a suspected Chinese spy balloon was drifting through the stratosphere 60,000 feet above Montana, his first inclination was to take it down.

By then, however, it was both too early and too late. After flying over swaths of sparsely populated land, it was now projected to keep drifting over American cities and towns. The debris from the balloon could endanger lives on the ground, his top military brass told him.

Its arrival had gone unnoticed by the public as it floated eastward over Alaska – where it was first detected by North American Aerospace Defense Command on January 28 – toward Canada. NORAD continued to track and assess the balloon’s path and activities, but military officials assigned little importance to the intrusion into American airspace, having often witnessed Chinese spy balloons slip into the skies above the United States. At the time, the balloon was not assessed to be an intelligence risk or physical threat, officials say.

This time, however, the balloon kept going: high over Alaska, into Canada and back toward the US, attracting little attention from anyone looking up from the ground.

It would take seven days from when the balloon first entered US airspace before an F-22 fighter jet fired a heat-seeking missile into the balloon on the opposite end of the country, sending its equipment and machinery tumbling into the Atlantic Ocean.

The balloon’s week-long American journey, from the remote Aleutian Islands to the Carolina coast, left a wake of shattered diplomacy, furious reprisals from Biden’s political rivals and a preview of a new era of escalating military strain between the world’s two largest economies.

It’s also raised questions about why it wasn’t shot down sooner and what information, if any, it scooped up along its path.

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President Joe Biden speaks to reporters after arriving at Hagerstown Regional Airport in Maryland on February 4, 2023.

Related article Inside Biden's decision to 'take care of' the Chinese spy balloon that triggered a diplomatic crisis | CNN Politics

A White House official said Saturday that President Joe Biden and his military advisers took “responsible action” by waiting to shoot down the Chinese balloon until it was over water, minimizing the risk it could have posed to people on the ground had it been shot over the continental US.

Biden told reporters Saturday that he initially told the Pentagon to shoot down the suspected spy balloon on Wednesday, but he ultimately agreed with the military’s assessment that doing it over land could put American lives at risk and should be done over open water. 

“This is the responsible action for the Commander in Chief to take,” the official added. “He prioritized the safety of the American people. He ensured that the military take steps to protect against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information, mitigating any intelligence value to the PRC. And, we were able to track the balloon (and) get information on it.”

This comes after Republicans criticized the president for not taking steps to shoot down the balloon sooner. The top Republicans on the Armed Services Committees in both the House and Senate called the incident a display of “weakness” and vowed to seek answers from the administration.

Costa Rica on Saturday evening confirmed there had been sightings earlier this week of a large white observation balloon flying over the capital, San Jose.

The balloon was similar in appearance to the Chinese balloon shot down by the United States.

The director general of Costa Rica’s Civil Aviation, Fernando Naranjo Elizondo, told CNN that the airship spotted above San Jose on Thursday was “not a balloon that originated from Costa Rica.”

Noting that the balloon did not come down on Costa Rican territory he said there were no plans for further investigations “because the balloon has disappeared.”

The suspected surveillance balloon flies over Billings, Montana on Wednesday, February 1.

A senior US administration official has pushed back on China’s repeated claims that the downed balloon was simply for “civilian use” and had made its way into American airspace by “accident.”

“This was a PRC (People’s Republic of China) surveillance balloon. This surveillance balloon purposely traversed the United States and Canada and we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites,” the official said.

The official said a second balloon, spotted over Central and South America, was “another PRC surveillance balloon” and bore similar technical characteristics to the one that flew over the US.

The official said China is able to “actively maneuver the balloons to overfly specific locations,” pointing to the balloons’ flight patterns and the small motors and propellers seen in videos as evidence.

The official said China had used these types of surveillance balloons for years and the devices had been spotted over five continents.

The pushback comes after China’s Foreign Ministry expressed “dissatisfaction and protest” with the US decision to shoot down the balloon as it reached the Atlantic Ocean today. China once again claimed the balloon was “for civilian use and entered the US due to force majeure – it was completely an accident.”

The Chinese balloon incident has fueled a diplomatic crisis between China and the United States.

But it isn’t an isolated incident.

Here’s a look at some of the ways China has spied on the US, including satellites, cellphone towers and even people.

Related article A look at China's history of spying in the US | CNN Politics

Taiwan said Sunday that the Chinese balloon incident “should not be tolerated by the civilized international community.”

“Such actions by the Chinese Communist Party government contravene international law, breach the airspace of other countries, and violate their sovereignty,” Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It called on China’s government to “immediately cease conduct of this kind that encroaches on other countries and causes regional instability.”

China – which insists the balloon was a civilian research vessel – has expressed its “strong dissatisfaction and protest” against Washington’s decision to shoot down the balloon, saying it was “overreacting” and “seriously violating international practice.”

Taiwan has experience of balloons from China overflying its territory. In September 2021 and in February 2022, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said balloons that were believed to be used for “meteorological observations” flew over the self-ruled island. It is unclear if those balloons were the same type as the one shot down by US fighter jets on Saturday.

China has expressed its “strong dissatisfaction and protest” against the US’ shooting down of its balloon, saying Washington was “overreacting” and “seriously violating international practice,” in a statement from its foreign ministry.

“China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protest against the US’s use of force to attack civilian unmanned aircraft. The Chinese side has repeatedly informed the US side after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US due to force majeure – it was completely an accident,” reads the statement, which was published Sunday morning local time (Saturday evening in the US).

“China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant companies, while reserving the right to make further necessary reaction,” the ministry said.

What the US is saying: While Pentagon officials did say this week that the airship posed no “military or physical” threat to the US, they also flatly denied China’s claim that the balloon served a civilian research purpose.

Military leaders said they were confident the aircraft was used for espionage.

Contrails from jets circle the suspected Chinese spy balloon as it floats off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, on Saturday, February 4. 

Government agencies worked throughout the week to find the right place and time to intercept the suspected Chinese spy balloon, according to a government source familiar with Saturday’s shoot-down. 

Earlier in the week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was told by the Pentagon to prepare options for shutting down airspace. 

Government officials were told last night that “decisions would be made this morning” on when to close down airspace. FAA officials were told to “be by the phone” early this morning and to be “ready to roll.”

Coastal residents near the site where a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean Saturday are being advised not to try to turn debris into a souvenir.

Pieces of the balloon could make it to the coastline as US military members work to pick up debris from the ocean, according to the government of Horry County, South Carolina, which includes Myrtle Beach.

“Debris should not be touched, moved, or removed,” a Facebook post from the Horry County government said.

“Such items are part of a federal investigation and tampering could interfere in that investigation,” the post stated.

Remains from the suspected Chinese spy balloon will be taken to an FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, for analysis by FBI experts and intelligence agencies, according to two people briefed on the matter.  

Earlier this afternoon, a senior defense official said the Defense Department has launched a collaborative effort with the FBI and counterintelligence authorities to assist with “categorizing and assessing the platform itself.”

A still from Joey Lopes' video of the balloon being shot down Saturday, February 4.

A witness who captured video of the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon being shot down said he happened to see it as he was enjoying a Saturday in Myrtle Beach.

Lopes told CNN’s Jim Acosta Saturday afternoon that he decided to pull his phone out and began recording the scene in the sky just before a missile took the balloon out.

“We saw the fighter jets circling around. There were about three or four of them,” said Lopes. “And then after that, we heard a bang, and the balloon was gone.”

Lopes added he was concerned about the possibility of debris falling if the balloon was shot over land, but was glad that the military waited until it was out to sea.

“I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff in Myrtle Beach over the last three years. This is by far the craziest,” Lopes said.

Multiple US Navy and Coast Guard vessels are in the area where the suspected Chinese spy balloon went down and are securing a perimeter, according to a senior US military official said.

The official told CNN that the Navy had anticipated having to recover debris in deeper water, but it landed at a depth of about 47 feet, which “will make it fairly easy.”

The official said “capable Navy divers” will go down as needed into the water to assist in the operation. There are also “unmanned vessels that can go down to get the structure and lift it back up on the recovery ship,” the official added.

The official did not know how long it would take crews to recover any salvageable equipment from the downed aircraft but noted that recovery could take “a relatively short time.”

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the balloon shot down by the US over the Atlantic Ocean Saturday was being used by the Chinese government “to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States.”

President Joe Biden gave the Pentagon authorization on Wednesday to take down the surveillance balloon “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path,” Austin said in a statement after the military downed the aircraft Saturday.

“Today’s deliberate and lawful action demonstrates that President Biden and his national security team will always put the safety and security of the American people first while responding effectively to the (People’s Republic of China)’s unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Austin said.

President Joe Biden speaks to reporters after arriving at Hagerstown Regional Airport in Hagerstown, Maryland, on February 4.

President Joe Biden said the mission to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the East Coast Saturday was successful, and that he had ordered the Pentagon to knock the aircraft out of the sky as soon as it was safe to do so.

“They decided, without doing damage to anyone on the ground, they decided that the best time to do that was as it got over water … within a 12-mile limit. They successfully took it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” the president added.

Asked if that was a recommendation from his national security team, Biden reiterated: “I told them to shoot it down. They said to me, ‘Let’s wait for the safest place to do it.’”

Watch here:

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01:03 • Source: CNN

CNN’s Nikki Carvajal contributed reporting to this post.

The suspected Chinese spy balloon falls to the ocean after being shot down Saturday, February 4.

The US military used fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to take down the suspected Chinese spy balloon at 2:39 p.m. ET on Saturday, according to a senior US military official.

A single missile was used, the official said. The US military used F-22 aircrafts and fired an AIM-9X missile.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the Chinese leader for the suspected spy balloon that was taken down after crossing the continental United States.

“I strongly condemn President Xi’s brazen incursion into American airspace and I commend President Biden’s leadership in taking down the Chinese balloon over water to ensure safety for all Americans,” Schumer said in a statement Saturday. “Now we can collect the equipment and analyze the technology used by the Chinese Communist Party.”

The US has rejected China’s claims that the balloon entered US airspace by accident, calling it a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “made clear” in his conversation with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on Friday morning that the US “reserved the right to take whatever action we deemed appropriate to protect our interests,” a US senior administration official told CNN Saturday.

The official was responding to a question about whether the US government informed the Chinese government before downing the surveillance balloon. 

US military officials shot down the suspected spy balloon off the East Coast Saturday afternoon, over the Atlantic Ocean near the Carolinas.