WASHINGTON – A Minnesota Air Guard pilot needed two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles to prick and destroy a mystery balloon over Lake Huron. “First shot missed. Second shot hit,” said General Mark Milley chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at a news conference. The Sidewinders are an expesive weapon at $500,000 each. The Sidewinder that missed the balloon fell into Lake Huron and probably is intact on the floor and recoverable, Milley said. The balloon came down on the Canadian side of the border. The Sidewinder missile that missed endangered no aircraft or watercraft, Milley said. “We go to great lengths to make sure that the airspace is clear and the backdrop is clear up to the max effective range of the missile. And in this case, the missile landed harmlessly in the water.” It didn’t detonate, he said. “We tracked it all the way down, and we made sure that the airspace was clear of any commercial, civilian or recreational traffic.”
Earlier: Divers into Lake Huron for balloon wreckage
Earlier: Walz: Balloon shoot-down “flawless”
Wingtip launch. Sidewinder leaves fighter for target.
Dissected. Break-away diagram shows brains, motor.
Balloons’ origins
The Pentagon is is reasonably certain a that a balloon that ttaversed the continental Unuted States at 60,000 feet two weeks ago was on a spry mission from China. There is less certainty about other balloons that have been intercepted and downed at much lower altitudes. An emerging theory is that they are “sky trash” – balloons that had completed a “benign missions,” like weather research or academic or corporate flights, and then kept meandering aloft.