US restricts activities at three airports over so-called Chinese ‘spy balloon’

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has restricted activities at three US airports for “national security initiatives” in the same area where China’s so-called “spy balloon” is located.

The organization has temporarily closed the Wilmington, Myrtle Beach, and Charleston airports in North Carolina and South Carolina, which according to local media interpretation may indicate that action will be taken against the device.

“The FAA has suspended departures and arrivals at Wilmington (ILM), Myrtle Beach (MYR) and Charleston International (CHS) airports to support the Department of Defense in national security efforts,” the social media post read.

According to CNN, flight-tracking websites showing military aircraft activity show multiple flights off the Carolina coast on Saturday, in line with the expected trajectory of the so-called chinese spy ball.

The Pentagon has not confirmed that any of the US military aircraft in the area are related to the balloon.

The network also notes that two Air Force refueling tankers took off off the coast of South Carolina this Saturday, while a Coast Guard C-130 Hercules flies low off the coast of North Carolina.

CNN notes that fighter jets that can be used to target the globe won’t necessarily show up on flight tracking websites, so tankers may be the only publicly available indication that fighter jets are in the area.

“We’ll take care of it”

US President Joe Biden first raised the issue this Saturday, albeit with only the ambiguous phrase “We’ll take care of it,” he said in press statements at an airfield in Syracuse, New York, where he attended a family funeral.

He balloon aerostatic, which has a strained relationship between USA And Chinawas at the height of Charlotte, North Carolina this morning, according to images released by national media.

Despite the excitement caused by the event, the US government has yet to offer new updates to the device this Saturday, and nothing new is known about another balloon flying over Latin America, the Pentagon confirmed on Friday.

Last Thursday, the Pentagon announced that it was monitoring the movements of a Chinese “spy balloon” that flew over the state of Montana (northeast US), where one of the three existing nuclear missile silos in the US is located.

For now, Pentagon officials have recommended that no action be taken against the device for security reasons, as debris could fall on the population.

The presence of this Chinese “spy balloon” in US airspace provoked a diplomatic crisis between Washington and Beijing and led to the suspension of a trip that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken planned to make to China.

For its part, China admitted this Friday that the balloon belongs to it, although it assured that “it is a civilian airship used for research purposes, mainly meteorological.” (As reported by EFE)

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Fernando Carvallo selects information and shares his vision of national and international news. subscribe to our Las cosas newsletter, as they should be reading your daily columns.