JAKARTA - An American pilot who flew high over a hot air balloon suspected of being a Chinese spy balloon took a selfie from a close range to the massive white object, a day before the Air Force shot down the hot air balloon off the coast of South Carolina.
The photo shows the top of the pilot's helmet in the cockpit of the U-2 plane, with balloons flying below. The photo was taken on February 3, when the hot air balloon was near Kansas.
The Pentagon released the photo on Wednesday, more than two weeks after the hot air balloon made headlines internationally while crossing US territory.
The air balloon was dropped on February 4 by an F-22 Raptor fighter jet that fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile. The shooting was carried out when the hot air balloon was no longer above land, but was still in US territorial waters.
Meanwhile, the U-2 Dragon Lady is a US spy plane flying at altitudes that has been operating since the 1950s.
Last Friday, the Pentagon announced that Navy and submarine ships had completed collecting large balloon debris and its cargo, which fell to pieces into the Atlantic Ocean.
"The majority of balloons, including their payloads, have been found from the seabed and are being analyzed by the FBI," Pentagon spokesman Sabrina Singh said on Wednesday.
The shooting caused three other smaller objects to also be shot down by Air Force jets within eight days. One above Alaska, one above Canada and the other above Lake Huron. The search for objects in Alaska and Lake Huron is over.
It is known that the suspected hot air balloon as a Chinese spy plane first entered US airspace on January 28, before moving to Canadian airspace on January 30. The balloon then returned to US airspace on January 31, according to US officials.
Meanwhile, China calls it a civilian balloon used for meteorological research, strongly criticizing the US for shooting the balloon down.
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