U.S. military says it recovers key sensors from downed Chinese spy
balloon
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[February 14, 2023]
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Monday it had recovered
critical electronics from the suspected Chinese spy balloon downed by a
U.S. fighter jet off South Carolina's coast on Feb. 4, including key
sensors presumably used for intelligence gathering.
"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 U.S. military's
Northern Command said in a statement.
The Chinese balloon, which Beijing denies was a government spy vessel,
spent a week flying over the United States and Canada before President
Joe Biden ordered it shot down. The episode strained ties between
Washington and Beijing, leading America's top diplomat to postpone a
trip to China.
It also led to the U.S. military scouring the skies for other objects
that were not being captured by radar, leading to an unprecedented three
shootdowns in the three days between Friday and Sunday.
The U.S. military and the Biden administration have acknowledged that
much about the most recent, unmanned objects remains unknown, including
how they stay aloft, who built them and whether they may have been
collecting intelligence.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sought to calm Americans on Monday
about the risks posed by the unidentified objects.
"I want to reassure Americans that these objects do not present a
military threat to anyone on the ground," Austin said, speaking to
reporters as he landed in Brussels for a NATO gathering.
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The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts
to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach,
South Carolina, U.S. February 4, 2023. REUTERS/Randall Hill
"They do, however, present a risk to civil aviation and potentially
an intelligence collection threat."
The U.S. military has said that targeting the latest objects has
been more difficult than shooting down the Chinese spy balloon,
given the smaller size and the objects' lack of a traditional radar
signature.
In an example of the difficulty, the latest shootdown of an
unidentified object on Sunday by an F-16 fighter jet took two
sidewinder missiles - after one of them failed to down the target, a
U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Austin said the U.S. military has not yet recovered any debris from
the three most recent objects shot down, one of which fell off the
coast of Alaska in ice and snow. Another shootdown occurred over the
Yukon territory in Canada.
U.S. officials have declined to connect the incidents.
But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that the
four aerial objects shot down in recent days were somehow connected,
without elaborating.
"Obviously there is some sort of pattern in there, the fact we are
seeing this in a significant degree over the past week is a cause
for interest and close attention," Trudeau told reporters in a news
conference in Whitehorse, Yukon's capital.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by
Matthew Lewis)
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