The US Military shoots down Chinese Balloon

The US has shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that was flying over North America and passed sensitive military sites.

The balloon was estimated to be about the size of three school buses and was flying at around 60,000 feet. The FAA and Coast Guard cleared the airspace and water below the balloon to make way for a US operation to recover the debris from the ocean.

The balloon was spotted off the Carolina coast on Saturday morning and the FAA temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coast, including at Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Wilmington airports.

The Coast Guard advised mariners to leave the area due to the US military operation. The balloon was originally thought to have been intended for meteorology research but the Pentagon has rejected that claim and said it was being used for surveillance.

A second Chinese surveillance balloon has been detected over Latin America.