The North American Joint Aerospace Defense Command shot down an unidentified aircraft in Canadian airspace. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that this was done on his orders.
“Canadian and American aircraft were airlifted and an American F-22 successfully strafed the target,” Trudeau wrote. He also said that he spoke with US President Joe Biden and noted that the Canadian armed forces will collect and study the wreckage of the apparatus.
The Associated Press, citing US officials, reports that an unidentified object was seen in the sky over Alaska on Friday, February 10th. On Saturday, it entered Canadian airspace and was shot down over Yukon, a sparsely populated area in the country's northwest. Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand told a press conference in Ottawa that the aircraft was shot down at an altitude of 12 km.
This is the second unknown object shot down over North America: on February 10, the aircraft was destroyed on the orders of Biden off the coast of Alaska. A little earlier, on February 4, the US military shot down a Chinese reconnaissance balloon. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that it was a research balloon that had gone off course.
On February 11, US authorities blacklisted five Chinese companies and one research institute associated with the spy balloon program.