Glen VanHerck, retired Air Force general who led the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), told the National Post this week that officials only contacted him when the balloon was nearly over Alaska – two weeks before it crossed into the Lower 48.
He immediately scrambled two Raptor stealth fighters and two armed F-16s to deal with the balloon, but due to it not posing a physical threat, the jets had to stand down until President Joe Biden gave the green light.
VanHerck said he should have been warned about the spy balloon in advance. Reports have since suggested that U.S. intelligence may have been aware of the balloon when it launched from Hainan Island in China.
It’s a Failure of Multiple Intelligence, DoD Agencies
“It’s a failure of multiple intelligence, Department of Defense agencies. I should not be surprised by something coming into my area of responsibility … Anybody who knows about it should pass that on. It shouldn’t be less than 24 hours notice.”
The balloon was shot down with a Sidewinder missile fired from an Air Force F-22 Raptor over the Atlantic Ocean.
“The balloon opened up eyes,” said Glen VanHerck, a now-retired U.S. Air Force General who commanded NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) during the balloon’s incursion into U.S. airspace.
VanHerck told the National Post that the balloon highlighted how attacks could arrive without warning, “We’re not going to see long-range cruise missiles. We’re not going to see balloons over the horizon.”
“Today, with missiles being fired off submarines, missiles being fired off aircraft, missiles being fired from the land well beyond curvature-of-the-Earth ranges, your time is limited to respond to those types of things.”
Alarms were raised at NORAD after the balloon changed course, heading south on a trajectory that would take it over Idaho, which borders Montana, where a military base and nuclear missile silos are located. Military officials hatched a plan to shoot down the balloon but waited until it was over water to minimize the risks to U.S. civilians and infrastructure.
Vanherck, a former fighter and bomber pilot, found that U.S. sovereignty extends to space.
VanHerck says that the intelligence community only got in touch on January 27, 2023, when the balloon was almost over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
The U.S. government declined to say which sites the Chinese balloon surveyed before
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