live in the cnn newsroom. i m jim acosta in washington. residents in and around myrtle beach are told not to collect debris from a downed chinese spy bloochblt that comes as we are getting one of the best looks yet at the shootdown of the balloon. you re looking at the footage right now. our u.s. fighter jets fired a single missile to crash the craft. right now military crews are scrambling to recover the wreckage. most of it sitting in 47 feet of water. oren lieberman is at the pentagon for us. back to the video we just got from c infer n in the last several minutes just to highlight the clearest image yet that we have where you can see the balloon is popped, essentially, destroyed. you can clearly see what appears to know the surveillance equipment dropping very quickly into the atlantic ocean. i suppose that gives the military, the pentagon, some hope that what they are hoping to retrieve out of the atlantic is salvageable and may offer some clues as to what the chinese we
the coast of myrtle beach, south carolina. tonight, military crews are jam bling to recover the wreckage, and china is responding angrily. meanwhile, president biden says he and u.s. military leaders decided to wait until the balloon completed its cross-country journey and was safely overwater before shooting it down. listen to this. on wednesday when i was briefed on the balloon, i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible. cnn has team coverage of this extraordinary moment in u.s. china relations. i want to start with cnn s orin lieberman over at the palm. walk us through what happened earlier today. this was days of planning to get to this point, to figure out how best to shoot this balloon down and where best to shoot this balloon down. in the end, the department of defense recommended waiting until it was out overwater and the prevailing winds over the united states, especially over the course of the past day, took it out over the water
hello and welcome. coming to you live from studio 4 at the cnn center in atlanta, i m michael holmes. appreciate your company. coming up on cnn newsroom i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible. the u.s. has shot down a suspected chinese spy balloon after it traveled across america for days. recovery efforts now under way. china says the balloon entered u.s. air space by accident, heightening already tense relations between washington and beijing. live in hong kong with the latest from there. it s not the only one. the pentagon says a second balloon is flying over latin america. a report ahead. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with michael holmes. we br to show you the dramatic moment a u.s. sidewinder missile took out the suspected chinese spy balloon that has caused so much havoc this week. the balloon was so high up, nearly 12 miles or 20 kilometers, that it took a few seconds for the shockwave to reach the grou
developments this morning following the military s shootdown of the suspected chinese spy balloon off the south carolina coast. the fbi analyzing the pieces of the balloon as china sends a warning to the white house. our team is covering this story from multiple angels. plus, new details on that train derailment that sparked a massive fire in eastern ohio. officials now saying train cars contained hazardous materials. the latest on that cleanup effort. and the fbi offering a $25,000 reward for information about the attacks on two power substations. why officials say these stations are increasingly being targeted by extremist groups. and could artificial intelligence soon put us all out of work? you may want to polish your resumé. it s all ahead on cnn this morning. we are starting another week and we are grateful to have you. it is sunday, february 5th. thanks so much for waking up with us. amara, i don t think as much attention has been paid to a balloon since tha
reporter: yeah, i don t think that an aircraft like that would survive for very long in chinese air space transiting the entire country. the chinese official reaction to this has evolved. on friday night, the chinese foreign ministry expressed regret and said that this was a research aircraft that had gone off course, been blown off course, and it was working with the u.s. to help deal with this. now, after you have an f-22 shooting the balloon downright off the coast of south carolina, the chinese foreign ministry is suddenly protesting this saying, china expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protests against the u.s. use of force to attack civilian unmanned aircraft. the chinese side had repeatedly informed the u.s. side after verification the ship is in