While sailors continued to comb the South Carolina coast for pieces of the downed craft, the US Navy on Tuesday unveiled the first official photos of its recovery attempts for the Chinese spy balloon.
After the surveillance gadget was shot down on Saturday, navy personnel were seen removing substantial pieces of the high-altitude balloon from the waters off Myrtle Beach, which US officials claim was 200 feet tall.
One picture showed a dozen sailors hauling fragments of the white cloth envelope of the balloon and chunks of metal onto a ship.
Unmanned underwater vehicles are now being utilized to track and gather the debris because military officials have not yet determined the condition of the gadget or how many parts it may be in.
According to Air Force General Glen VanHerck, who is also the commander of the US Northern Command (NORCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Navy is taking precautions during the retrieval process in case the balloon contains explosives.
Additionally, VanHerck said that the debris covered a space larger than “15 football fields by 15 football fields square.”
Once they have been gathered, the fragments of the destroyed ship are being sent to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, where they will be analyzed by the agency and other counterintelligence officials.
Despite the Biden administration downplaying the implications of the downed gadget on national security, US officials have warned that the balloon’s successful recovery could offer important information into China’s eavesdropping capabilities.
The former commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, retired Navy Adm. Harry Harris, stated during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday that “we need to understand more fully the Chinese surveillance capabilities and systems.”
“I think it’s very helpful in that regard to shoot down that [balloon] and then recover the parts over the Atlantic.”
Biden’s decision to wait until the balloon was off the coast of South Carolina before shooting it down was defended by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who noted that military advisors determined that doing so “created a greater possibility that we could effectively exploit the wreckage than if it were shot down over land.”
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