SHOOT, THAT WAS COSTLY!
$1.6M? Ballooning cost of 3 ‘mini’ hits
The Defense Department spent at least $1.6 million to shoot down three unidentified objects that the Biden administration now says may have been recreational balloons.
Air Force jets used four $400,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles to down the objects over Alaska, Canada’s Yukon territory and Lake Huron on Feb. 10, 11, and 12, respectively.
It took two attempts to bring down the object floating over Lake Huron on Feb. 12, because the first Sidewinder missile missed its mark and another had to be fired.
A defense official told The Post that total doesn’t include the cost of the flights used to track and shoot down the devices — since those flight hours were considered part of previously budgeted pilot training.
It also doesn’t include the price of the Navy, Coast Guard, Alaska National Guard and Canadian forces scouring the remote regions for debris.
The search was called off Feb. 17, with US officials saying they might never be able to identify the objects.
No evidence
But President Biden said last week that no evidence points to them belonging to China or being used by other countries for surveillance.
“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects are most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreational or research institutions, studying weather or conducting other scientific research,” the president told Americans on Feb. 16.
The three objects were shot down after a Chinese spy balloon was detected in US airspace on Jan. 28 off Alaska.
That object was downed Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina by US fighter jets — but not before it sailed over sensitive military installations across the lower 48.
The debris from the balloon has been recovered from the Atlantic and is being examined at the FBI laboratory at Quantico, Va.