The United States has shot down a massive Chinese balloon that it claims was eavesdropping on important military facilities around the country.
The US Department of Defense announced that its fighter aircraft shot down the balloon above US territory.
Later, China’s foreign ministry expressed “strong displeasure and protest” over the US’s use of force to target civilian unmanned aircraft.
Footage shown on US television networks showed the balloon crashing into the sea after a tiny explosion.
An F-22 jet fighter fired one missile, an AIM-9X Sidewinder, at the high-altitude balloon, which crashed about six nautical miles off the US coast at 14:39 EST (19:39 GMT), according to a defense official.
Defense officials informed US media that the debris landed in 47ft (14m) of water near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which was shallower than expected.
The military is currently attempting to recover debris that has stretched over seven miles (11km). Two naval ships are in the region, one of which has a large crane for recovery.
President Biden approved the plan to destroy the balloon on Wednesday, but the Pentagon said it would wait until the device was over water to avoid putting anyone on the ground in danger.
The groundwork for the operation was laid when the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) abruptly suspended all civilian flights at three airports around the South Carolina coast on Saturday afternoon because of a “national security operation”.
Defence authorities also confirmed on Saturday that the balloon first entered US airspace near the Aleutian Islands on January 28, before travelling to Canadian airspace three days later and reentering the US on January 31. The object was discovered in Montana, a state in the United States that is home to several critical nuclear missile facilities.
The event has strained relations between China and the United States, with the Pentagon calling it an “unacceptable infringement” of US sovereignty.
The Pentagon announced on Friday that a second Chinese surveillance balloon had been sighted over Latin America, with reports of sightings across Costa Rica and Venezuela.
Colombia’s Air Force reports that an identifiable object, thought to be a balloon, was discovered above 55,000 feet in the country’s airspace on 3 February.
It claims it followed the object until it departed the airspace and that it posed no threat to national security.
China has not yet publicly commented on the reported second balloon.
