Military collecting Chinese balloon remnants

Underwater drones aid search for debris off South Carolina.

WASHINGTON — Navy divers began pulling pieces of the downed Chinese spy balloon from the depths of the ocean floor on Tuesday, using sophisticated reconnaissance drones dubbed the Kingfish and the Swordfish to locate the debris.

After collecting all of the balloon’s white fabric and shell structure found floating on the surface, the Navy has now shifted to an allunderwater search for the remnants of the massive balloon that a U.S. fighter jet shot down off South Carolina on Saturday, officials said.

Navy and Coast Guard personnel are using underwater drones to locate and map the debris field, and divers are gathering what they can, officials said.

The debris already collected was being hauled by small boats to a few area locations, including a Coast Guard station south of Myrtle Beach, and the remnants, depending on their size, will eventually go either to the FBI lab at Quantico, Va., or to other sites where experts can analyze them, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the ongoing military operation.

The head of U.S. Northern Command, Gen. Glen VanHerck, who is in charge of the recovery effort, and several Biden administration officials will brief members of Congress on the balloon on Wednesday and Thursday.

Lawmakers have raised a number of questions about whether the balloon was able to collect intelligence and transmit it back to China as it traveled eastward across the United States, after crossing the border from Canada into Idaho.

White House and Pentagon officials have largely avoided providing details on the balloon’s capabilities.

Officials said Tuesday that the U.S. was very aware of the sites the balloon had crossed over — including nuclear missile silos and other military installations — and that it knows how to prevent intelligence collection from such sites. Even if the balloon was able to transmit, they said, it wasn’t getting any new or important information to send.

The officials were unwilling to provide insight into what the U.S. has been able to glean about the balloon’s collection and transmission abilities.

The balloon, an estimated 200 feet tall, was carrying a long sensor package underneath, which VanHerck estimated was the size of a small regional jet.

U.S. counterintelligence teams hope to learn about the sensors and other equipment on the balloon as they retrieve and study its debris.

The balloon’s remnants are scattered in waters that are about 50 feet deep, stretching across an area 15 football fields long and 15 football fields across, VanHerck said.

In new images released Tuesday, sailors from Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 can be seen leaning over a rigid hull inflatable boat and pulling in broad swaths of the balloon’s white outer fabric and shell structure.

VanHerck has said the recovery teams are taking precautions to safeguard against the chance that the balloon was rigged with explosives or is dangerous in any way.

A Navy warship, the USS Carter Hall, is heading the recovery effort, aided by three Coast Guard cutters — the Venturous, the Richard Snyder and the Nathan Bruckenthal — as well as the Pathfinder, an oceanographic naval survey ship.

A salvage ship is expected to arrive at the scene on Wednesday.