Canada authorizes the destruction of an unidentified object flying over its territory
A Lockheed F-22 Raptor fighter jet.
© AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
4 mins
A US warplane shot down an unidentified object over Canada on Saturday afternoon, on the orders of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, marking a new incident in North American skies since the downing of a supposed Chinese spy balloon last week.
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Justin Trudeau announced on Saturday that an "
unidentified object
" was shot down while flying over the northwest of the country, a day after the United States destroyed a flying object over Alaska.
“
I have ordered the grounding of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace
,” tweeted Justin Trudeau.
"
Planes from Canada and the United States were dispatched to the scene, and the firing
" of an AIM 9X missile from an American F-22 "
hit
" its target.
US President Joe Biden had authorized the device, one of the aircraft of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), to "
work with Canada
", explained the spokesman of the Pentagon, Pat Ryder.
Canadian forces "
will now recover and analyze the debris of the object
," added the Canadian Prime Minister.
The object was flying at an altitude of 12,200 meters, detailed the Minister of National Defense of Canada, Anita Anand, during a press conference on Saturday evening, and was shot down about 160 km from the Canada-Canada border. American around 8:40 p.m. UT.
The object is a "
cylindrical device
" smaller than the balloon destroyed in North Carolina last week, said the Minister of Canadian Defense.
"
For the moment, we are continuing the analyzes of the object, so it would not be prudent on my part to speculate on its origin
", she added, before thanking the Pentagon and the members of the Canadian and American for their cooperation.
Third slaughter in a week
Earlier in the afternoon, Anita Anand, had claimed on Twitter to have exchanged with her American counterpart, the Secretary of Defense of the United States, Lloyd Austin, reaffirming that "we will always defend our sovereignty together
"
.
Justin Trudeau spoke to US President Joe Biden about the downed target over the Yukon, a territory in northwestern Canada bordering Alaska where US forces destroyed another flying object on Friday, "
the size of a small car
," because it posed "
a threat to air traffic safety
," according to John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.
It is therefore the second flying object shot down by the United States in some 24 hours.
Search and recovery operations for the remains of the object destroyed on Friday continued on Saturday but were hampered by "
cooling Arctic air, snow and limited daylight
", the Command said. North American in a statement, adding that the Pentagon could not provide "
any further details (...) about the object, including its capabilities, purpose or origin
".
And on Saturday evening, airspace was temporarily closed in Montana due to the presence of "an
object that could interfere with commercial air traffic
", according to House of Representatives Matt Rosendale.
The Department of Defense
"
will continue its efforts to observe and neutralize the object in the morning
", first informed the American civil aviation regulator (FAA).
Before the Pentagon evokes a "
radar anomaly
" detected but no object identified...
The shootings come a week after Washington destroyed a balloon off its Atlantic coast, which had flown over sensitive military sites and had been described by Beijing as a "civilian aircraft used for research purposes, mainly meteorological
"
.
Footage captured by US military aircraft shows that the Chinese balloon that flew over the United States last week was well equipped with spy tools and not intended for weather forecasting.
This diplomatic clash had led the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken to postpone a rare visit to China.
The American authorities are still busy collecting the debris from the balloon in the Atlantic, near the coast of South Carolina.
►
To read also: Balloons, pirates and cameras: when the United States and its allies accuse China of espionage
(With AFP)
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