Washington, February 11, 2023 (Lusa) – The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that it has closed the airspace of the state of Montana (west) for more than an hour after detecting a “radar anomaly”.

“The FAA has closed a portion of Montana airspace to support Department of Defense operations. The airspace has reopened,” the US civil aviation regulator said in a statement.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) later said the airspace shutdown, which lasted just over an hour, came after it detected “a radar anomaly”.

NORAD said it sent fighter jets to investigate, but the fighter jets did not identify any objects that matched radar signals.

The closure of Montana airspace comes hours after NORAD shot down an unidentified flying object at high altitude over northern Canada, repeating a similar US action on Friday.

“I ordered the downing of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace. NORAD shot down the object in Yukon airspace, Canadian and American air forces teamed up, and an American F-22 successfully fired on the object. »Twitter.

In a second message, quoted by the Associated Press news agency, Justin Trudeau added: “The Canadian Armed Forces will now collect and analyze the wreckage of the object”.

Anita Anand added that the object was shot down at 3:41 p.m. (8:41 p.m. Saturday in Lisbon), in the central area of ​​the Yukon, about 160 kilometers from the border with the United States.

The minister admitted the object appeared to be similar, albeit smaller, to a purported Chinese spy balloon that spent nearly a week flying over US and Canadian airspace before being shot down by US planes on February 4.

“It would be unwise for me to speculate on the origin of the object at this point,” Anand explained.

Although the object was detected hours before being shot down, the lack of daylight, which would allow visual identification, kept Canadian authorities waiting before ordering its neutralization.

It was the third unidentified flying object to violate North American airspace in the space of two weeks.

The U.S. military shot down a second object over Alaskan airspace on Friday, but officials did not provide details on the type of flying object shot down.

VQ (MBA) // VQ

By Impala News / Lusa

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