we ll have much more on the suspected spy balloon in a moment, but first this breaking news just coming in. the man who led pakistan at the start of america s declared war on terror and the conflict in neighboring afghanistan has died. he died after a prolonged illness according to a statement from pakistan s military. he was in dubai where he lived for several years in self-imposed exile. musharraf was 79 years old. you re now about to see and hear i think we re going to you re now about to see and hear the dramatic moment a u.s. sidewinder missile took out the suspected chinese spy balloon that caused such havoc last week. here it is. it happened saturday off the coast of south carolina near myrtle beach. the balloon was so high up at nearly 12 miles or 20 kilometers that it took a few seconds for the shock wave to reach the ground. china issued a stern protest afterward accusing the u.s. of overreacting. beijing insists it was a civilian research balloon that blew of
not taking steps to down this balloon sooner. republicans have argued that this is a sign of weakness in the white house s approach towards china, but the white house has pushed back saying this was a responsible action for a commander in chief to take. they are arguing that what the president was trying to do was prioritize saving american lives. now, there are lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are calling for briefings and hearings into this matter and the so-called gang of eight congressional leaders will receive a briefing from biden administration officials next week as there are still so many outstanding questions about how this incident unfolded. arlette saenz, cnn, the white house. the suspected chinese spy balloon shot down over the carolinas wasn t the only one in the western hemisphere. the pentagon said a second balloon was flying over latin america. confirmed the sights in his country and told cnn the balloon did not originate inicosa reeka
reporter: what has been an effort to track this chinese surveillance balloon for days as it made its way across the united states and out over the ocean is now a recovery effort to bring up the wreckage of the chinese surveillance balloon and the payload it was carrying from the ocean floor, not all that deep according to the pentagon. a senior defense official said the wreckage landed in 47 feet of water, so relatively shallow there. and there were navy and coast guard assets on site to begin establishing a perimeter, and a salvage vessel on its way to start bringing up the wreckage here. it may be difficult to see what s left of that wreckage. it did fall from a height of 60,000 feet, so nearly 12 miles it impacted the water, that may very well have done serious damage to the technology onboard. that s what the pentagon and that s what the u.s. government will figure out. what condition is it in? and what is salvage? what can you learn from this? and what can you glean about the st
a senior defense official says they didn t just start now, though. over the course of the last several days the pentagon made an effort to make sure this chinese surveillance balloon couldn t gather as much information as they were looking for although they wouldn t detail exactly what those efforts entailed, instead they tried to flip the script monitoring the balloon constantly and trying to learn what they could about it as it traversed the united states. in terms of what went flue this beforehand, there were days of planning to figure out what best possible time to shoot this down. in fact, it was decided not to shoot it down over the continental united states because of the risk to people and property. instead that decision was made out over the water. the pentagon and northern command launched f22 from northern hampton, virginia. in the end it was a single f22 that fired a single a-wind sidewinder that in a dramatic video we saw pierces the
last week. here it is. it happened saturday off the coast of south carolina near myrtle beach. the balloon was so high up at nearly 12 miles or 20 kilometers that it took a few seconds for the shock wave to reach the ground. china issued a stern protest afterward accusing the u.s. of overreacting. beijing insists it was a civilian research balloon that blew off course, but pentagon officials say they re confident it was conducting surveillance. at last report we re told salvage efforts are under way to retrieve the wreckage from the ocean bottom. the water in that area is only about 50 feet deep or 15 meters. well, cnn s oren leiberman explains what the u.s. plans to do with the balloon s remnants.