US Navy releases first images of Chinese balloon recovery

The US Navy has released the first images of their efforts to recover the Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down on Saturday.

The balloon was shot down about six miles off the coast of South Carolina, within American territorial waters, by an F-22 Raptor hailing from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. The Raptor fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile, the latest variant of the infrared-guided air-to-air weapon, at an altitude of 58,000 feet, impacting the ballon somewhere between 60,000 and 65,000 feet.

According to Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, recovery efforts were initially postponed because of rough seas and began at around 10 a.m. Eastern time on Monday. The USS Carter Hall, an amphibious landing ship, led the recovery effort, while the survey ship USNS Pathfinder used sonar to check the ocean floor for sunken debris.

“The Pathfinder is a ship that conducts survey operations using sonar and other means to map out the debris field. It’s capable of conducting oceanographic, hydrographic, bathymetric surveys of the bottom of the ocean to do that,” VanHerck explained.

“And they’ll eventually produce us a map — they’re in the process of doing that, and I expect to have much more today — of the full debris field. But we expect the debris field to be of the rough order of magnitude of about 1,500 meters by 1,500 meters, and so, you know, more than 15 football fields by 15 football fields.”

The area is also being patrolled by Coast Guard cutters Venturous, Richard Snyder and Nathan B. Bruckenthal, as well as Coast Guard aircraft, which the General explained was for the safety of military personnel and any civilians in the area. The FBI and agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service were also present to aid in both the salvage efforts and counter-intelligence operations.

“We continue to — to focus on safe execution of a recovery, well, effective recovery so that we can exploit that, and to provide as much information as we can to the media, the public, Congress — everybody that has an interest in what we’re actually finding,” VanHerck said on Monday.

Precautions are being taken during the salvage operation in case explosives or toxic substances are present, VanHerck said.

The balloon caught the world’s attention over the past week as it traversed part of Canada and the mainland United States. China has acknowledged that the balloon originated within the nation, though officials have argued that it’s a civilian platform meant to conduct weather experiments. The American State Department, however, has rejected those claims, stating in no uncertain terms that the balloon is an intelligence-gathering system.