Lake Michigan

FAA Reopens Airspace Over Lake Michigan After Brief Closure Prompted by ‘Defense Activities'

Hours after the restriction was put in place, U.S. officials announced President Joe Biden ordered an “unidentified object” shot down with a missile by U.S. fighter jets Sunday over Lake Huron

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The Federal Aviation Administration briefly closed airspace Sunday over Lake Michigan to support "Department of Defense activities," according to the government agency.

A temporary flight restriction was implemented at around 11 a.m. CST, according to a statement from the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which was working in conjunction with the FAA. In a statement tweeted at around 11:44 a.m., NORAD said the flight restriction had been lifted.

Hours later, U.S. officials announced President Joe Biden ordered an “unidentified object” shot down with a missile by U.S. fighter jets Sunday over Lake Huron, and it was believed to be the same one tracked over Montana and monitored by the government beginning the night before.

The downing came after earlier objects over Alaska and Canada were shot out of the sky because they were flying at altitudes that posed a threat to commercial aircraft, according to the officials, who had knowledge of the downings and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operations.

The latest object brought down was first detected on Saturday evening over Montana, but it was initially thought to be an anomaly. Radar picked it up again Sunday hovering over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and it was going over Lake Huron.

The United States on Saturday downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast on orders from President Joe Biden after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America, becoming the latest flashpoint in tensions between Washington and Beijing. Vi Nguyen has the latest.

The object marks the fourth shot out of the sky by U.S. fighter jets in eight days.

U.S. officials were still trying to precisely identify the other two objects blown from the sky by F-22 fighter jets over the past two days. They also were working to determine whether China was responsible as concerns escalated about what Washington said was Beijing’s large-scale aerial surveillance program.

Pentagon Spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick S. Ryder says the high-altitude object that was shot down off the coast of Alaska posed a "reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight."

The object shot down Saturday over Canada’s Yukon was described by U.S. officials as a balloon significantly smaller than the balloon — the size of three school buses — hit by a missile Feb. 4 while drifting off the South Carolina coast after traversing the country. A flying object brought down over the remote northern coast of Alaska on Friday was more cylindrical and described as a type of airship.

The three objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected Chinese spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the U.S. missile strike.

NBC Chicago/Associated Press
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