The U.S. Department of Defense shot down the Chinese balloon it has accused of espionage this Saturday around 2:30 p.m. on the east coast (7:30 p.m. Spanish Peninsula time) over Atlantic waters near the state of South Carolina. About an hour earlier, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), which is responsible for civil airspace, ordered the grounding of air traffic at three airports in the region to “assist the defense in national security efforts”.
“We will take care of him”, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, had promised this Saturday, answering with this single sentence a question from the journalists who accompanied him on a last-minute visit to the city of Syracuse, in the state of New York. He gave no further information.
The Federal Aviation Agency, which is responsible for controlling civil airspace, announced on Saturday the closure of three airports in the area where the balloon was last sighted, with the qualification that the reason was “to the Ministry of Defense in a case help national security efforts. The three airports affected were Charleston International, Myrtle Beach International and Wilmington International in the states of South and North Carolina.
The notice already indicated the Department of Defense’s intention to attempt to destroy the balloon if the device flew over Atlantic waters and the risk to the population on the surface was reduced.
[Noticia de última hora. Habrá actualización en breve]
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