World News | Military Finishes Recovering Chinese Balloon Debris

Washington, Feb 17 (AP) The US has finished efforts to recover the remnants of the large balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, and analysis of the debris so far reinforces conclusions that it was a Chinese spy balloon, US officials said Friday.

Officials said the U.S. believes that Navy, Coast Guard and FBI personnel collected all of the balloon debris off the ocean floor, which included key equipment from the payload that could reveal what information it was able to monitor and collect.

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US Northern Command said in a statement that the recovery operations ended Thursday and the final pieces are on their way to the FBI lab in Virginia for analysis. It said air and maritime restrictions off South Carolina have been lifted.

The announcement capped three dramatic weeks that saw US fighter jets shoot down four airborne objects — the large Chinese balloon on Feb. 4 and three much smaller objects about a week later over Canada, Alaska and Lake Huron. They are the first known peacetime shootdowns of unauthorized objects in US airspace.

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The officials also said the search for the small airborne object that was shot down over Lake Huron has stopped, and nothing has been recovered. US officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. The US and Canada have also failed to recover any debris so far from the other two objects which were shot down over the Yukon and northern Alaska.

While the military is confident the balloon shot down off South Carolina was a surveillance airship operated by China, the Biden administration has admitted that the three smaller objects were likely civilian-owned balloons that were targeted during the heightened response, after US homeland defense radars were recalibrated to detect slower moving airborne items.

Due to their small size and the remote areas where they were shot down, officials acknowledge that recovering any debris is difficult and probably unlikely. Those last two searches, however, have not been formally called off.

Much of the Chinese balloon fell into about 50 feet (15 meters) of water, and the Navy was able to collect remnants floating on the surface, and divers and unmanned naval vessels pulled up the rest from the bottom of the ocean. Northern Command said Friday that all of the Navy and Coast Guard ships have left the area. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)