 "Key sensors recovered from downed Chinese spy balloon, says US military")
Washington: The US military announced on Monday that it had recovered critical electronics from the alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down by a US fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on 4 February, including key sensors presumably used for intelligence gathering.
“Crews have been able to recover significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified as well as large sections of the structure,” the U.S. military’s Northern Command was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.
The Chinese balloon, which Beijing denies was a government spy vessel, flew over the United States and Canada for a week before President Joe Biden ordered its shot down. The incident strained relations between Washington and Beijing, prompting America’s top ambassador to cancel a trip to China.
It also led the US military to comb the skies for other objects that were not being detected by radar, resulting in an unprecedented three shootdowns between Friday and Sunday.
On Monday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sought to calm Americans about the dangers posed by the unidentified objects.
“I want to reassure Americans that these objects do not present a military threat to anyone on the ground,” Austin said, speaking to reporters as he landed in Brussels for a NATO gathering.
The U.S. military has said that targeting the latest objects has been more difficult than shooting down the Chinese spy balloon, given the smaller size and the objects’ lack of a traditional radar signature.
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View AllAustin stated that the US military has not yet retrieved any debris from the three most recent objects shot down, one of which landed in ice and snow off the coast of Alaska. Another shootdown occurred over Canada’s Yukon area.
U.S. officials have declined to connect the incidents.
But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that the four aerial objects shot down in recent days were somehow connected, without elaborating.
“Obviously there is some sort of pattern in there, the fact we are seeing this in a significant degree over the past week is a cause for interest and close attention,” Trudeau told reporters in a news conference in Whitehorse, Yukon’s capital.
With inputs from agency
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