U.S. F-22 Jet Shoots Down Chinese 'Surveillance' Balloon

A US Air Force F-22 fighter fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at a Chinese 'surveillance' balloon which fell in the ocean approximately six miles off the coast of South Carolina.

The F-22 fired the Sidewinder at the balloon from an altitude of 58,000 feet. The balloon at the time was between 60,000 and 65,000 feet.

"The balloon, which was being used by the PRC (Peoples' Republic of China) in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above U.S. territorial waters," U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin said in a Pentagon statement.

U.S. officials first detected the balloon and its payload on January 28 when it entered U.S. airspace near the Aleutian Islands. The balloon traversed Alaska, Canada and re-entered U.S. airspace over Idaho.

The surveillance balloon's overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us," an unnamed official said during a media briefing. "I can't go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable," he added.

The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior (Trump) administration.

U.S. Rejects Chinese "weather baloon" claim

"The PRC has claimed publicly that the high-altitude balloon operating above the United States is a weather balloon that was blown off course. This is false," the official said. "This was a PRC 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 mission now transitions to one of recovery. There are a number of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels establishing a security perimeter around the area where the balloon came to Earth. They are searching for debris, the official said.

There is no estimate for how long the recovery mission will take, the military official said, but the fact that it came down in such a shallow area should make recovery "fairly easy".