The first images of debris recovered from the downed Chinese spy balloon have been released by the US Navy.
An extensive operation using underwater drones, warships and inflatable vessels is currently underway to retrieve all of the pieces from the balloon, which was shot down by a US fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.
Images released by the US Navy showed sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 pulling large sections of the balloon’s white outer fabric and shell structure from the water on Sunday.
General Glen VanHerck, head of the US Northern Command, told reporters on Monday that a naval ship was in the process of mapping the debris field, which is expected to measure about 1500 x 1500m in the Atlantic Ocean.
The balloon itself was up to 60m tall and carried a payload weighing around 900kg that was roughly the size of a regional jet aircraft, he said.
General VanHerck said the balloon debris would be carefully studied.
“I don’t know where the debris is going to go for a final analysis, but I will tell you that certainly the intel community along with the law enforcement community that works this under counterintelligence will take a good look at it,” he said.
He added teams were taking precautions in case the balloon was rigged with explosives.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden defended the decision to wait until the balloon had crossed the country to down it, saying the Defence Department concluded that it was best to do so over water.
“Once it came over the United States from Canada, I told the Defence Department I wanted to shoot it down as soon as it was appropriate,” Mr Biden told reporters.
“They concluded we should not shoot it down over land. It was not a serious threat and we should wait ’til it got [over] the water.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the same day that measures were taken to ensure the balloon’s instruments were “mitigated” in their ability to spy during the flyover, while “at the same time increasing and improving our ability to collect intelligence and information from it”.
“We’re still analysing the information that we were able to collect off of the balloon before we shot it out of the sky and now we’re going to recover it and I suspect we may learn even more,” he said.
Mr Kirby said US personnel “have recovered some remnants off the surface of the sea”, although weather conditions have not permitted much undersea surveillance of the debris field.
They will “in the coming days be able to get down there and take a better look at what’s on the bottom of the ocean, but it’s just started,” Mr Kirby said.
China says the balloon was an errant weather observation aircraft with no military purpose, but Washington has described it as a sophisticated high-altitude spying vehicle.
After slowly traversing the middle of the US reportedly over several top secret military sites, the balloon headed out over the east coast, where it was downed.
Mr Biden, who has tried to establish more stability in the relationship with China, said he was not surprised by the balloon incident.
“The question of the balloon and attempting to spy on the United States is something that is anticipated from China,” he said.
“It’s not a question of trusting China, it’s a question of deciding where we can work together and where we have opposition.”
According to Mr Kirby, there was no intention to send the pieces back to China.
“I know of no such intention or plans to return it,” he said.
One detail already known, Mr Kirby said, is that the balloon was not merely drifting but had propellers and steering to give a measure of control, even as it was swept along in high altitude jet stream winds.
“It is true that this balloon had the ability to manoeuvre itself – to speed up, to slow down and to turn. So it had propellers, it had a rudder, if you will, to allow it to change direction,” he said.
On Tuesday, it was revealed that Beijing rejected a request for a secure call between Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and his counterpart on the day the balloon was shot down.
“On Saturday, February 4, immediately after taking action to down the PRC [People’s Republic of China] balloon, the DOD [Department of Defence] submitted a request for a secure call between Secretary Austin and PRC Minister of National Defence Wei Fenghe,” Brigadier General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the PRC has declined our request. Our commitment to open lines of communication will continue.”
The two met in Cambodia last November as Washington and Beijing sought to lower the political temperature after a visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that enraged China.
But the balloon incident has heightened tensions again, and led US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to scrap a rare trip to Beijing.