February 6, 2023
(Senior Defense Official and Senior Military Official Hold an Off-Camera, On-Background Press Briefing Update on the High-Altitude Surveillance Balloon.)
STAFF: So good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today’s background briefing regarding the U.S. military takedown of the high-altitude surveillance balloon launched and belonging to the People’s Republic of China over U.S. territorial waters.
As you may be aware, Secretary of Defense Austin issued a statement a short while ago, which is available on defense.gov. Today’s background briefing is intended to provide the public and the media with additional details regarding the operation to take down the Chinese balloon to include the prudent planning and measures taken to ensure public safety before, during, and after today’s successful engagement.
Our briefers today are (inaudible) who you may attribute to — as a “senior defense official,” and (inaudible) whose comments you may attribute to a “senior military official.” I’ll turn it over to our senior defense official who will make some opening remarks. And then we’ll get right to your questions.
Let me go to our senior defense official. Over to you, sir.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Thank you, (inaudible).
Thanks, everybody, for hopping on the call. As you know, the United States government detected and was tracking closely a high-altitude surveillance balloon. President Biden asked the military to present options. On Wednesday, President Biden gave his authorization to take down the Chinese surveillance balloon as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to U.S. civilians under the balloon’s path.
Military commanders determined that there was undue risk of debris causing harm to civilians while the balloon was over land. As a result, they developed a plan to down the balloon once it was over water in U.S. territorial airspace. That mission has now been successfully completed. At the direction of the president, the U.S. military, at 2:39 p.m. this afternoon, shot down the high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina and within U.S. territorial airspace.
Fighter aircraft from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia fired a single missile into the balloon, causing it to crash into the ocean. In terms of some of the specific detail, this was the first available opportunity to successfully bring down this surveillance balloon in a way that would not pose a threat to the safety of Americans, which our military assessed to be the case when it was approximately six nautical miles off our cost.
There are no indications that any people, including U.S. military personnel, civilian aircraft, or maritime vessels were harmed in any way. While we work to execute this plan to bring down successfully over U.S. territorial waters, we also took immediate steps to protect against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the PRC.
Shooting the balloon down addressed the surveillance threat posed to military installations and further neutralized any intelligence value it could have produced, preventing it from returning to the PRC. In addition, shooting the balloon down could enable the U.S. to recover sensitive PRC equipment.
I would also note that while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon’s collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon’s overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us. I can’t go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable.
As Chinese officials have themselves acknowledged, this high-altitude surveillance balloon belonged to the People’s Republic of China. The balloon never posed a military or physical threat to the American people. However, its intrusion of our airspace for multiple days was an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.
PRC government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time. We spoke directly with Chinese officials through multiple channels, but rather than address their intrusion into our airspace, the PRC put out an explanation that lacked any credibility.
The PRC has claimed publicly that the high-altitude balloon operating above the United States is a weather balloon that was blown off-course. This is false. This was a PRC surveillance balloon. This surveillance balloon purposefully traversed the United States and Canada. And we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites. Its route over the United States, near many potential sensitive sites, contradicts the PRC government’s explanation that it was a weather balloon.
This is not the only PRC surveillance balloon operating in the Western Hemisphere. We assess that a balloon was observed transiting Central and South America, and that that is another PRC surveillance balloon. These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries.
These kinds of activities are often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA. Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia, and Europe. PRC intrusions violating our sovereignty and the sovereignty of other countries are unacceptable. We have notified the PRC about our actions and we are briefing allies and partners.
And what that, (inaudible), I’ll hand it over to you.
STAFF: Great, thank you very much, (inaudible).
(Courtesy photo)
Top: Air Force cadets release a research weather balloon at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., Feb 25, 2019. (DoD photo).