House Intel Committee Chair Warns U.S. Doesn’t Have an “Adequate Radar System” After Flying Objects Shot Down
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee warned the United States doesn’t have an adequate radar system after multiple incidents involving flying objects in recent days.
“We don’t really have adequate radar system, and we certainly don’t have an integrated missile defense system. We’re going to have to begin to look at the United States airspace as one that we need to defend,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the House Intelligence panel’s chair, Telled CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “This shows some of the problems and gaps that we have.”
After a Chinese spy was suspected, lawmakers raised the alarm. balloon On February 4, the aircraft was spotted above U.S. Territory. While some of them called on the military to shoot it down, the aircraft traveled over much of the continental United States before it was downed by an F-22 Raptor near South Carolina’s coast days later.
Over the last few days, both Canadian and U.S. officials reported more incidents. Saturday saw another F-22 shoot down an unknown object close to the Yukon Territory. The same day, another F-22 also shot down an object in northern Alaska, near Prudhoe Bay.
On Saturday evening, the Canadian-U.S.-operated North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Federal Aviation Administration shut down airspace in a part of Montana. The incident was later attributed to a radar anomaly. Airspace was temporarily closed.
“They do appear somewhat trigger-happy, although this is certainly preferable to the permissive environment that they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over to our most sensitive sites,” Turner stated this on the Sunday program.
But the top Republican said that he hasn’t been briefed on the latest developments around unknown objects being shot down. He described the lack intelligence and insufficient details. “particularly annoying,” Claim “there needs to be more engagement within the administration and Congress.”
“Probably they’re a little hesitant after the Chinese balloon fiasco, where they let it go across the country to great criticism—bipartisan, bicameral criticisms from Congress,” He kept going. “I think it’s certainly a new, recent development that you have China being so aggressive in entering other country’s airspace.”
‘Much Smaller’
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told a separate news program Sunday that U.S. officials have indicated to him that they believe the recently shot down objects are balloons, although they’re not as large as the one that was shot down off the Carolinas.
Schumer replied affirmatively to an ABC News interviewer when asked whether the two objects were balloons. “They believe they were, yes, but much smaller than the first one,” He stated.
Schumer stated that teams were removing debris from the objects and would attempt to identify where it came from. The objects that were downed Friday and Saturday were smaller, and they flew at lower altitudes (around 40,000 feet), in the same airspace as commercial flights. This is compared to the height of the first one, which was about 60,000 feet.
“The bottom line is until a few months ago we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer spoke. “It is wild that we didn’t know. … Now they are learning a lot more. And the military and the intelligence are focused like a laser on first gathering and accumulating the information, then coming up with a comprehensive analysis.”
Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand told a news conference in Ottawa that one of the objects, flying at around 40,000 feet, had been shot down at 3:41 p.m. EST, approximately 100 miles from the Canada–U.S. The border is in central Yukon. Canadian Armed Forces, Royal Canadian Mounted Police were involved in a rescue operation.
The Federal Aviation Administration in the United States announced Saturday night that it had closed airspace in Montana for support of Defense Department activities. NORAD later confirmed that the closure, which lasted just over an hour, was made after it had detected the issue. “a radar anomaly” They sent fighter planes to investigate. NORAD reported that the aircraft failed to identify any object which could have been correlated to radar hits.
According to U.S. military officials, recovery efforts are underway in Deadhorse (Alaska), a remote area within the Arctic Circle.
This report was contributed by The Associated Press.
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