The US is searching a sea area equivalent to 15 by 15 football fields for the remains of China’s spy balloon that it destroyed on Saturday over the Atlantic, the head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, General Glen, said Monday. VanHerck.
Participating in the search are the Navy ship USS Carter Hall, a Pathfinder vessel with sonar, and unmanned underwater vehicles probing 50 feet underwater. It was not ruled out that parts of the balloon reach the shore and citizens who live in the area were urged to notify if they find any part.
The military is receiving help from the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. According to VanHerck, the balloon was 61 meters high and had a cargo space similar to that of an airplane, so he calculated that the remains of the device could have a great weight. It had solar panels and “potentially dangerous” material, such as a set of batteries and possible “explosives” to detonate and destroy the balloon. The NORAD commander confirmed that the balloon was destroyed on Saturday by the firing of an AIM-9X missile with a nuclear warhead from an F-22 fighter-bomber.
The spokesman for the White House Security Council, John Kirby, defended this Monday the action of the United States in shooting down the Chinese spy balloon that had been flying over the national territory for several days and assured that “The US acted in accordance with international law and in defense of our homeland and our sovereign airspace,” two days after the US shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina.