US works to recover debris, intel from downed Chinese ‘spy’ balloon

The U.S. military is working to recover debris and intelligence information from a Chinese “spy” balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.

The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard are working to establish a perimeter around where the balloon fell into the Atlantic Ocean and is searching for debris, a senior defense official said. The search is expected to be “fairly easy,” given that the balloon was shot down in a shallow area, the official said in a statement.

The surveillance balloon went down about six miles off the Carolina coast in about 47 feet of water, after an F-22 fighter fired one missile at the balloon, according to the Air Force press release.

However, despite falling in relatively shallow water, the official said there is no estimate for how long it will take to recover the debris.

The Biden administration’s decision to wait until Saturday to shoot down the balloon has been widely criticized by Republicans, who have described it as an “embarrassing display of weakness” and a “national security failure.” The balloon initially entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 28, and the public became widely aware after it was spotted over Montana on Wednesday.

President Biden — who reportedly gave an order on Wednesday to down the aircraft “as soon as possible” — said on Saturday that he was advised to wait until the balloon was over water due to safety concerns on the ground.

U.S. officials have also insisted that they took steps to protect against the collection of sensitive information and to mitigate the balloon’s “intelligence value” for Beijing while it was still traversing the U.S.

The senior defense official also noted that recovering the downed balloon could be valuable, as it would allow the U.S. to examine sensitive Chinese equipment.

“While we took all necessary steps to protect against the [People’s Republic of China’s] surveillance balloon’s collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon’s overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us,” the official said. 

They also noted that Chinese balloons briefly traveled over the U.S. at least three times during the Trump administration.

Beijing confirmed on Friday that the balloon was Chinese, but claimed that it was primarily for meteorological research — an explanation that has failed to convince U.S. officials. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement on Saturday that the Chinese balloon had been surveilling “strategic sites” within the U.S.