Canada shoots down 'unidentified object' in airspace
Canada has shot down an ‘unidentified object’ that violated its airspace.
Forces will recover and analyse the wreckage, prime minister Justin Trudeau has said.
The object was shot down by US and Canadian jets.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he ordered a US warplane to shoot down the object that was ‘flying high over northern Canada’.
Shortly before Mr Trudeau’s tweet, the North American Aerospace Defence Command said it had detected an object flying at high altitude over Canada.
On Twitter, he wrote ‘I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace.
‘@NORADCommand shot down the object over the Yukon. Canadian and US aircraft were scrambled, and a US F-22 successfully fired at the object.’
The object was the third known to have violated North American airspace in the past two weeks.
In a second tweet, Mr Trudeau said: ‘I spoke with President Biden this afternoon. Canadian Forces will now recover and analyse the wreckage of the object. Thank you to Norad for keeping the watch over North America.’
On Friday, the US shot shot down another object over its airspace, less than a week after downing a Chinese spy balloon.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby had said: ‘The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.
‘Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object and they did and it came inside our territorial waters and those waters right now are frozen.’
It was ‘roughly the size of a small car’, Kirby said.
By comparison, the spy balloon the US shot down on Saturday was the size of several buses.
The suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot down had several antennas and solar panels capable of collecting intelligence, according to the US.
The balloon taken down by the US last Saturday also had solar panels that were large enough to ‘operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors’.
Additionally, the official said that equipment inside was ‘inconsistent’ with what is found in the interior of a weather balloon – which is what China has claimed it is.
The country’s foreign affairs ministry claimed that the ‘airship’ has limited steering capability and ‘deviated far from its planned course’ after being blown off course.
‘It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes,’ the spokesperson said.
‘Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure.
‘The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side to properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure.’
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