coming to you live from studio 4 at the cnn center in atlanta, miami michael holmes. coming up, the suspected chinese spy balloon s journey ended by a single missile by a u.s. fighter jet. they just shot it. see the smoke coming from it? recovery efforts under way at this hour. the incident heightening already tense relations between washington and beijing. and we have all of the angles covered right here. oren lieberman has the view from pentagon. we have reports from the white house and our ivan watson is live in hong kong with china s angry response. we are about to show you the dramatic moment a u.s. side winder missile took out that suspected chinese spy balloon that caused such havoc this week. the balloon was so high up, nearly 12 miles or 20 kilometers that it took a few seconds for the shock wave the reach the ground. have a listen. [ explosion ] the shootdown happened saturday off the coast of south carolina near myrtle beach. it was a sensational ending t
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
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
It did fall from a height of 60,000 feet. so nearly 12 miles and impacted the water that may very well have done serious damage to the technology on board. that s what the pentagon and that s what the u.s. government will figure out. what condition is it in and what is salvageable, what can you learn from this? what can you glean about the state of chinese technology and what they put on that surveillance balloon? that becomes the effort now. a senior defense official says that 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. 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 what was went into this beforehand, there were days of planning to figure out the best
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