US President Joe
Biden ordered a fighter jet to shoot down an unidentified "high-altitude
object" off Alaska on Friday, the White House says.
Spokesman John
Kirby said the unmanned object was "the size of a small car" and
posed a "reasonable threat" to civilian aviation.
The object's
purpose and origin was unclear, Mr Kirby said.
It comes a week
after the American military destroyed a Chinese balloon over US territorial
waters.
Speaking at the
White House on Friday, Mr Kirby said the debris field of the object shot down
on Friday was "much, much smaller" than the balloon shot down last
Saturday off the coast of South Carolina.
He said that the
object was flying at 40,000ft (12,000m) over the northern coast of Alaska.
It had already
flown across Alaska at a speed of 20 to 40mph (64km/h) and was out over the sea
travelling towards the North Pole, when it was shot down.
Commercial
airlines can fly as high as 45,000ft.
Helicopters and
transport aircraft have been deployed to collect debris from the frozen waters
of the Beaufort Sea.
"We do not
know who owns it, whether it's state owned or corporate owned or privately
owned," Mr Kirby said.
The object was
first spotted on Thursday night, though officials did not specify a time.
He said two
fighter jets had approached the object and assessed there was nobody on board,
and this information was available to Mr Biden when he made his decision.
"We're
going to remain vigilant about our airspace," Mr Kirby asserted. "The
president takes his obligations to protect our national security interests as
paramount."
According to ABC
News, the object seemed to have no propulsion.
It seemed to be
floating, "cylindrical and silver-ish grey", reports the network's
chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, citing an unnamed US
official.
Pentagon press
secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said the object was "not similar in
size or shape" to last week's Chinese balloon.
He confirmed
that an F-22 jet had shot down the object with a sidewinder missile at 13:45
EST (18:45 GMT) on Friday.
The Pentagon
said an F-22, seen here in an archive photograph, shot down the object on
Friday afternoon local time
The warplane was
scrambled from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
Gen Ryder said a
significant amount of debris had been recovered so far. It was being loaded on
to vessels and taken to "labs for subsequent analysis", he added.
Officials said
they had not yet determined whether the object was involved in surveillance,
and Mr Kirby corrected a reporter who referred to it as a balloon.
He did not
specify where exactly the object was shot down, but the Federal Aviation
Administration said it had closed about 10 sq miles of US airspace airspace
above Deadhorse, northern Alaska, before the F-22 fired.
The site is
about 130 miles from the border of Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
said on Twitter he had been briefed on the "object that violated American
airspace" and "supported the decision to take action".
No other objects
of a threatening nature have been identified above the US at this time,
according to the White House.
Mr Kirby said
the object did not appear to have the manoeuvrable capability of the Chinese
balloon and seemed to be "virtually at the whim of the wind".
Hours after the
US shot down the balloon last Saturday, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin called
his Chinese counterpart via their special crisis line.
But Chinese
Defence Minister Wei Fenghe declined to pick up, according to the Pentagon.
Chinese
officials on Friday accused the US of "political manipulation and
hype".
In an interview
on Thursday, President Biden defended his handling of the Chinese balloon,
maintaining that it was not "a major breach".
Late on Friday,
five Chinese companies and one research institute were added to the US
government's trade blacklist. Organisations were placed on the list for their
alleged support of Chinese military aerospace programmes - including airships
and balloons - the US Commerce Department announced.
By Sam Cabral & Chloe Kim || BBC
News, Washington
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