[War Zone] The U.S. Air Force's U-2S Dragon Lady spy planes were among the assets tapped to monitor and collect intelligence on a Chinese government surveillance balloon during its recent trip across parts of the continental United States and Canada. An F-22 Raptor stealth fighter finally shot down the balloon with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, and efforts are now underway to recover the wreckage from the Atlantic Ocean. Readers of The War Zone can first get up to speed on what we already know about this incident, and its conclusion, in our past reporting here.A U.S. defense official confirmed the use of the U-2S as part of the broader response to the Chinese spy balloon to The War Zone today. It's not immediately clear all the points along the balloon's voyage that U-2s were present.
The Pentagon said over the weekend that the balloon had first entered U.S. national airspace over the Aleutian Islands on January 28. It then passed into Canadian airspace two days later and returned to U.S. airspace, over northern Idaho, on January 31. The balloon then followed a broadly southeasterly track across the contiguous United States before moving out over the Atlantic off South Carolina, where it was ultimately shot down.