An F-22 fighter jet monitoring the object fired a missile that brought it down. (representative)
Ottawa, Canada:
A U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object over Canada on Saturday – a joint operation by the two North American neighbors and the second time it has been shot down in their skies since the dramatic downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon a week ago. class objects.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had ordered the object’s removal, the latest in a string of mysterious aerial incursions.
“Canadian and U.S. aircraft scrambled and a U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object,” Trudeau tweeted Saturday.
I ordered the shooting down of an unknown object violating Canadian airspace. @NORADCommand Objects shot down over the Yukon River. Canadian and US aircraft scrambled and a US F-22 successfully opened fire on the object.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 11, 2023
Trudeau said the Canadian Forces Forces in Yukon “will now recover and analyze the remains of the object.”
He said he spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden about the latest incursion, while Canada’s defense minister also said she spoke with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand tweeted that the two “reaffirm that together we will always defend our sovereignty”.
Saturday’s action came as the United States said on Wednesday that NATO joined in expressing concern that suspected Chinese spy balloons, such as the one shot down, were part of a “fleet” spanning five continents.
The Pentagon said U.S. and Canadian aircraft flew towards the object together on Saturday.
“President Biden today authorized U.S. fighter jets assigned to North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to work with Canada to shoot down a high-altitude object over northern Canada,” Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said in a statement.
It said one of the two F-22 fighter jets monitoring the object fired an AIM 9X missile, bringing it down.
The White House said Biden and Trudeau spoke Saturday and “commented the strong and effective partnership between NORAD and U.S. Northern Command and agreed to continue to coordinate closely to detect, track and defend our airspace.” “
The object taken out Saturday was shot down over the Yukon River on the border with Alaska, and fighter jets shot down another object Friday near the village of Deadhorse on the U.S. North Coast.
Search and recovery operations for the wreckage of the object continued Saturday but were hampered by “cold winds, snowfall and limited daylight” in the Arctic, Northern Command said in a statement.
“Recovery activities are ongoing on sea ice,” it said, adding that the Pentagon could provide “no further details … about the object, including its capabilities, purpose or origin.”
diplomatic repeat
Last month, a giant balloon carrying electronic equipment – which the Pentagon called a spy ship – flew over Canada and the United States, sparking a diplomatic clash with China, which acknowledged ownership of what it said was an innocuous blown weather balloon certainly.
The balloon entered U.S. airspace in Alaska on Jan. 28, passed through Canada and much of the U.S. — and prompted U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to cancel a rare trip to Beijing — before being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 4. Near South Carolina.
The balloon’s path overflew several U.S. military installations, including those housing silos for nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Biden’s decision to allow balloons to travel unimpeded across continents before shooting them over water has drawn fire from Republican lawmakers, some of whom have said the balloons should be shot down when they enter U.S. airspace.
The Northern Command statement said a federal recovery team of divers and an unmanned remote-controlled mini-submarine continued to investigate balloon debris in shallow water.
Images of the balloon showed it had surveillance equipment that could intercept telecommunications and solar panels powering multiple sensors, U.S. officials said.
(Aside from the title, this story is unedited by NDTV staff and published via a syndicated feed.)
