The Navy on Thursday concluded its recovery efforts that began after President Biden ordered the shoot-down on Feb. 4 of the surveillance device that had loitered over sensitive US military sites along its path.
NORAD commander Gen. Glen VanHerck had described the balloon as close to 200 feet tall with a payload the size of a jetliner, producing much debris to collect.
As pieces of the payload were recovered, the Navy helped transport them to shore, where they were taken into custody by federal investigators and sent to the FBI Lab at Quantico, Va.
US officials hope to use the debris to learn more about the balloon’s capabilities and purpose, as well as to gain insight into China’s spy balloon program.
It took the Navy 12 days to recover the balloon’s pieces from the ocean floor as weather and rough water affected the operation, which began with the USNS Pathfinder survey ship “using sonar and other means to map out the debris field,” VanHerck said on Feb. 6.
At the time, VanHerck estimated the debris field to be roughly 5,000 feet by 5,000 feet or “more than 15 football fields by 15 football fields” — slightly under a square mile.
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