Monday, February 06, 2023

Colombian military spots balloon-like object in its airspace

Sun, February 5, 2023 

(Reuters) - A day before a U.S. military jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon, Colombia's military confirmed a sighting over its territory of an airborne object similar to a balloon.

Colombia's air force said in a brief statement on Saturday that a possible balloon had been detected in its air defense system on Friday morning.

U.S. military officials on Friday said a Chinese balloon was spotted somewhere over Latin America but did not specify its location.

The Colombian statement did not mention China or any other country as the balloon's origin.

According to the Colombian statement, an "object" was detected over its territory at an altitude of 55,000 feet that had entered the South American country's airspace to the north moving at an average speed of 25 knots, or roughly 29 miles per hour.

The statement added that the object exhibited "characteristics similar to those of a balloon," and that the air force monitored it until it left Colombian airspace.

"It was determined that it did not represent a threat to national security," the statement added.

No other official confirmation of unidentified balloons flying over other Latin American countries has been issued as of Sunday.

In recent days, however, balloon sightings have been made in Venezuela and Costa Rica by multiple social media users.

Costa Rican officials received reports of a balloon on Thursday and planes were notified, according to the head of the civil aviation agency.

"It was the same thing everyone else saw, a white ball," said Fernando Naranjo, Costa Rica's civil aviation director, adding that no further action was taken.

The saga of the Chinese balloon, downed off of the U.S. Atlantic coast on Saturday, captivated public attention for days, and was widely seen as worsening U.S.-China relations.

Chinese ally Venezuela in a statement on Sunday condemned the U.S. decision to shoot down the balloon.

(Reporting by Diego Ore and David Alire Garcia; Additional reporting by Alvaro Murillo in San Jose; Editing by Mark Porter and Grant McCool)

Second balloon over Latin America is ours - China

Mon, February 6, 2023 

The first balloon, which was spotted over the United States, before it was shot down off the South Carolina coast

The Chinese government has admitted a balloon spotted over Latin America on Friday is from China - but claimed it is intended for civilian use.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the aircraft had deviated from its route, having been blown off course.

A similar balloon was shot down in US airspace by military jets on Saturday amid allegations that it was being used for surveillance.

China has denied accusations of spying, saying it was monitoring the weather.

The incident has led to a diplomatic row between Washington and Beijing.

On Friday - before fighter jets brought down the balloon at the weekend - US military officials said a second Chinese balloon had been spotted over Latin America.

On Monday, China admitted an aircraft had "accidentally entered Latin American and Caribbean airspace".

Ms Mao told reporters the second balloon had "deviated greatly" from its intended route, citing the aircraft's "limited manoeuvrability" and the weather conditions.

"The unmanned airship in question that came from China is of a civilian nature and used for flight tests," she added.

"China is a responsible country and has always strictly abided by international law in order to inform and properly deal with all parties concerned, without posing any threat to any country."

At the weekend, Colombia's air force said an object with "characteristics similar to those of a balloon" had been detected on 3 February in the country's airspace at above 55,000ft.

Colombia said it had followed the object until it left the airspace, adding that it did not represent a threat to national security.

High-altitude spying marks new low for US-China ties


Was China balloon blown off course?


Why use a spy balloon instead of satellites?

Meanwhile, work by US Navy divers continues to recover the wreckage of the surveillance balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.

US President Joe Biden first approved the plan to bring down the balloon on Wednesday, but decided to wait until it was over water so as not to put people on the ground at risk.

The US believes the balloon was being used to monitor sensitive military sites.

Adm Mike Mullen, former chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, rejected China's suggestion it might have blown off course, saying it was manoeuvrable because "it has propellers on it".

"This was not an accident. This was deliberate. It was intelligence," he added.

Relations between China and the US have been strained by the incident, with the Pentagon calling it an "unacceptable violation" of its sovereignty. A planned trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China was cancelled as a result of the row.

China has lodged a formal complaint with the US embassy in Beijing over the incident.


Graphic of high altitude balloon, showing helium filled balloon, solar panels and instruments bay which can include cameras, radar and communications equipment. They can fly at heights of 80,000ft-120,000ft, higher than fighter jets and commercial aircraft


How China's balloon over America steered its way into spying history



People photograph a suspected Chinese spy balloon as it floats off
the coast in Surfside Beach

Mon, February 6, 2023
By Phil Stewart and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When China's suspected surveillance balloon first passed into U.S. airspace north of Alaska's Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28, American officials believed there was a good chance it would keep traveling on a northern trajectory over sparsely populated areas.

But two days later the balloon did something unexpected: it slowed down, almost loitering, over Canada. Then it changed course and headed south on a new trajectory that would eventually take it over the U.S. state of Idaho, officials said.

"That's when we knew this was different," a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Chinese spy balloons have crossed into U.S. territory in the past but the way that this one maneuvered, steering toward sensitive U.S. sites, raised alarms at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), officials said.

The United States operates a military base and nuclear missile silos in Montana, a state bordering Idaho.

The appearance of the Chinese balloon caused a political uproar in the United States and prompted the top U.S. diplomat, Antony Blinken, to cancel a Feb. 5-6 trip to Beijing that both countries hoped would steady their rocky relations.

President Joe Biden asked for military options on Tuesday to deal with the growing - but still undisclosed - crisis.

Military officials developed a plan to shoot down the balloon on Wednesday as it flew over Montana.

Planning advanced to the point where Billings airport on Wednesday issued a ground stop to clear nearby airspace as the military mobilized F-22 fighter jets in case Biden ordered that the balloon be shot down.

"Even with those protective measures taken it was the judgment of our military commanders that we didn't drive the risk down low enough, so we didn't take the shot," a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Thursday.

Another U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the debris would have fallen at least in a seven-mile (11-km) radius, posing a mortal risk to Americans and potentially damaging infrastructure.

The best and safest option was instead to take the balloon down over water, officials concluded, a move that could also help U.S. intelligence recover the Chinese equipment for study.

BALLOON MANEUVERS

The U.S. government has declined to say which sites the Chinese balloon surveyed. It appeared to travel near sensitive U.S. bases including Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, which oversees 150 intercontinental ballistic missile silos, and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, home to U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of nuclear forces.

It also appeared to drift over Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, which operates the Air Force's B-2 bomber.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the balloon was able to linger in the winds over specific areas.

"We saw it do that. It loitered over certain sites. It went left, right. We saw it maneuver inside the jet stream. That's how it was operating," the official said, adding that the craft had propellers and rudders.

China says the balloon was a civilian craft used for meteorological and other purposes, and strayed into U.S. airspace "completely accidentally."

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman met with senior officials from the embassy of China to convey "a strong set of messages," a senior administration official said.

Biden had already directed his team to protect sites from Chinese collection of sensitive information as NORAD tracked the balloon's movements across the continental United States.

The United States also started gathering information about the balloon itself, including how it operated.

After sightings along the balloon's path, and public uproar swelled, Blinken decided on Thursday to officially postpone his trip to China, according to an administration official. On Friday, the Pentagon said it expected the balloon to keep flying over the United States for several more days.

SHOOT DOWN PREPARED


But after those public remarks, the balloon gathered speed, heading toward South Carolina's coast. Officials said it wasn't clear how much of that acceleration was due to the jet stream or the use of the balloon's own steering.

Biden approved a plan to shoot down the balloon on Friday night while he was in Wilmington, Delaware, setting off round-the-clock military preparations to coordinate the mission.

NASA analyzed and assessed the debris field, based on the trajectory of the balloon, weather and estimated "payload" of sensors, and a U.S. military operation unfolded at sea and in the skies.

Multiple fighter and refueling aircraft joined the mission to take down the Chinese balloon, but only one - an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia - took the shot at 2:39 p.m. (1939 GMT), using a single AIM-9X Sidewinder missile.

It punctured the balloon as it hovered at between 60,000 and 65,000 feet (18-20 km), and the payload came crashing down to the sea. The debris field stretched for some seven miles (11 km), as predicted, but most landed in relatively shallow water, just 47 feet (14 metres) deep.

"That will make it fairly easy, actually," a military official said of the recovery operation in the Atlantic.

Once the mission was complete, the U.S. government notified China while the State Department briefed American allies.

China condemned the action, saying America was "obviously overreacting."

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Jeff Mason; Editing by Don Durfee and Grant McCool)

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