Washington DC –
Navy United States of America (US) successfully evacuated the debris spy balloon owned by China from the ocean. The spy balloon was shot down over the weekend after several days being detected in the air over US airspace.
As reported CNN, Wednesday (8/2/2023), photos of the effort to evacuate the debris of the spy balloon were released by the US Navy on Tuesday (7/2) local time. One of the photos shows the moment when US Navy personnel pulled up the deflated balloon debris and loaded it onto the ship.
The evacuation of the debris from the spy balloon was carried out by the US Navy’s bomb disposal team. The debris from the spy balloon will be taken to a laboratory belonging to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Quantico, Virginia, for further analysis with Washington DC intent on understanding more deeply about the spy balloon’s capabilities.
Commander of the US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), General Glen VanHerck, said Monday (6/2) that the spy balloon was gigantic in size, reaching 60 meters in height and carrying payloads weighing up to thousands of pounds.
US officials had been tracking the spy balloon for several days when it detected it in the skies over Montana. President Joe Biden over the weekend instructed the US military to shoot down the spy balloon once it felt safe to do so.
“From a security standpoint, imagine yourself with huge pieces of debris weighing hundreds if not thousands of pounds falling from the sky. That’s what we’re talking about,” VanHerck said of the giant debris of the spy balloon.
“So the presence of glass in solar panels, potentially hazardous materials, such as materials required for batteries to operate in such an environment and even the potential for explosives to detonate and destroy balloons that might be present,” he added.
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(nvc/ita)
