US downs a fourth mystery aircraft
ottawa: A US fighter jet has shot down another unidentified object over Canada, the fourth mystery craft to be shot down over American airsapce in the past week.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he ordered the takedown of the object, a day after another craft was shot down over Alaska.
“Canadian and US aircraft were scrambled, and a US F-22 successfully fired at the object,” Trudeau tweeted yesterday.
Trudeau said Canadian forces in the Yukon “will now recover and analyse the wreckage of the object.” He said he spoke with US President Joe Biden over the latest incursion, while the countries’ defence ministers also spoke.
They “reaffirmed that we’ll always defend our sovereignty together,” Canadian defence minister Anita Anand tweeted.
The object taken out on Saturday was shot down over the Yukon, which borders Alaska, where fighter jets downed another object on Friday, off the US state’s north coast near the village of Deadhorse.
The US last week shot down a Chinese spy balloon over Carolina and another was spotted over South American nation Colombia.
US and Canadian planes flew together to take on the object on Saturday, the US Department of Defense said, led by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). One of two F-22 fighter jets monitoring the object fired an AIM 9X missile that brought it down. The White House said Biden and Trudeau spoke and “commended NORAD’s and US Northern Command’s strong and effective partnership and agreed to continue their close coordination to detect, track, and defend our airspace”.
The Pentagon could offer “no further details ... about the object, including its capabilities, purpose, or origin.”
The US said suspected Chinese spy balloons like the one it shot down last week were part of a “fleet” that has spanned five continents.