Military

A unidentified object has been shot down by U.S. forces over Lake Huron, according to the Department of Defense. The object appears to be the same object that had been detected over Montana a day earlier, said officials.

The airborne object — flying about 20,000 feet above the lake waters — was shot down by an F-16 fighter jet with a missile on Sunday afternoon, at the direction of President Biden and based on the recommendations of military leadership, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.

The path and altitude of object — which flew close to sensitive DOD sites and could have posed a risk to commercial aircraft — sparked concerns, the press secretary said.

“We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground, but assess it was a safety flight hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities,” Ryder said.

On Saturday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said it detected a “radar anomaly” over Havre, Mont., after an aircraft investigation of radar hits failed to locate an object matching the hits.

But on Sunday, Ryder said, officials could “reasonably” link the object downed that afternoon to the radar signal picked up over Montana based on its flight path and data.

“Our team will now work to recover the object in an effort to learn more,” Ryder said in the statement.

Earlier in the day, politicians from Michigan said they were in contact with the Defense Department about the object.

“The American people deserve far more answers than we have,” Rep. Jack Bergman tweeted.

The downing comes after the U.S. military shot down a cylindrical object in Canada’s Yukon territory on Saturday, and the downing of “a high altitude airborne object” off of the northern coast of Alaska on Friday. The U.S. also took down a Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast on Feb. 4.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told NPR’s All Things Considered on Sunday that he was “very confident” that none of the unidentified objects “represent a threat to the national security of the United States.”

“I’m confident that they are very unlikely to have the kinds of surveillance capabilities that the Chinese balloon that was shot down had,” Himes said. “And the reason I say that is that if they were a threat, if they were a military action, if they had dangerous capabilities, I’m quite certain I would have been briefed on that.”

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An F-22 fighter jet from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson shot down an unidentified object flying above Alaska’s North Slope on Friday, officials at the White House said.

The downing, at 9:45 a.m. Alaska time, took place less than a week after an Air Force fighter jet shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina.

Federal officials repeatedly declined to say whether the object was a balloon.

John Kirby, the National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the White House, said in a news conference that the object on Friday was “much, much smaller” than the Chinese surveillance balloon and was “about the size of a small car.”

Kirby said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the object was from China.

President Joe Biden ordered the object be shot down, Kirby said. It was traveling at an elevation of about 40,000 feet and could have posed a threat to commercial aviation, he said.

NORAD, in charge of air defense over North America, detected the object with ground-based radar on Thursday, according to the Defense Department.

A fighter jet inspected it visually, Kirby said. The president gave his order Friday morning after consulting military officials, and a jet conducted a second visual inspection before the balloon was shot down with an air-to-air missile.

Kirby said the flybys didn’t reveal much.

“They did the best they could, but again the speed and the conditions up there as well as the size of the object made it a little bit more difficult,” he said.

Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Defense Department spokesperson, said the object’s origin isn’t yet known. He declined to say how quickly the object was traveling.

“We will know more once we’re able to potentially recover some of those materials. But the primary concern again was the potential hazard to civilian flight,” he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction over Prudhoe Bay, portions of the North Slope and the Arctic Ocean on Friday morning. At least one flight carrying oilfield workers was delayed, according to a scheduling announcement given to the Beacon by a worker.

State Rep. Josiah Patkotak, I-Utqiagvik, represents the North Slope and said there is limited air traffic in the area — a regular flight between Utqiagvik and Kaktovik, plus commercial flights carrying cargo and passengers into Prudhoe Bay.

After it was shot down, the object fell onto sea ice offshore.

Online flight tracking services showed a C-130 from Elmendorf Air Force Base circling south of Prudhoe Bay for much of the morning before flying offshore and circling above a spot northeast of Prudhoe Bay.

Ryder said helicopters were also involved in the effort.

In a congressional hearing this week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she was angered that the earlier Chinese balloon was allowed to travel across Alaska and much of the United States before being shot down.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, mentioned the balloon during his annual address to state legislators this week and said after the first downing that the incident “cannot become a precedent for further Chinese Communist Party aggression.”

Patkotak said Friday’s incident indicates a need for military infrastructure development on the North Slope in order to respond to similar incidents. Any such development should be done only after consulting local communities, he said.

Reporter Ashley Murray contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

This article is developing and will be updated. Check back for more.

The article originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan on Tuesday urged the Alaska Legislature to use its collective power to support the Willow project, ConocoPhillips’ big Arctic drilling proposal.

“Close to 200,000 barrels a day. Seventeen billion in revenues for the feds, for the state, for the North Slope Borough,” he said, reciting the predicted results of the project. “Highest environmental standards, and lowest greenhouse gas emissions of any major project like this in the world, and broad-based support from so many Alaskans, particularly the Alaska Native leaders.”

But, Sullivan said, the battle over the project will be “ferocious” over the next month, while the Biden administration decides whether to green-light the proposal.

That’s because environmental advocates fiercely oppose the project. So do the city and tribe of Nuiqsut, the nearest village. They say the project will endanger wildlife and a subsistence lifestyle while accelerating climate change.

Sullivan, in his annual address to the Alaska Legislature, asked state lawmakers to pass a resolution supporting Willow.

His speech focused on the traditional Alaska complaints of a heavy-handed federal government and the hopes that the state will prosper through resource extraction and military spending.

“Since I’ve been in office, we have secured billions in military construction for Alaska, and that is continuing,” he said. “This of course has enhanced America’s national security. But it’s also been a great way to strengthen our economy and increase job growth and Alaska. “

Sullivan blamed the Biden administration for restraining resource development in Alaska, which he calls a “war on Alaska.” He also blamed the national media, which he complained are biased against Willow. Journalists, he said, don’t recognize that most Alaska Native leaders support the project.

“Yeah, you can always find one or two people, who you can quote, (who are) against it,” he said in a press conference after his speech.

On the drive to get new icebreakers for the U.S. Coast Guard, Sullivan promised that one is coming. And, he said, it will be homeported in Juneau due to his work behind the scenes.

“Every now and then you can leverage things, like confirmation or promotions of Coast Guard officers, and that’s what I did,” he told legislators. “Said we’re not moving forward on any more promotions in the Coast Guard until we get this study of where you’re going to put the icebreaker in our state.”

But money to buy the next icebreaker, a relatively small commercial ship that’s already built, was cut at the last minute from the federal spending bill last year.  Sullivan told reporters that he’s heard the money was diverted for border security, which Sen. Lisa Murkowski has said as well.

Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola will also make a speech to the Alaska Legislature this month, followed by Murkowski.

Two Fort Wainwright soldiers are undergoing treatment for injuries they sustained Sunday when their Army attack helicopter crashed at the Talkeetna airport during a training flight.

The soldiers, with the 25th Attack Battalion, were transported from the scene to area medical facilities for treatment, according to a Monday statement from the Army’s 11th Airborne Division. One of the soldiers was flown to a hospital and the other was taken by ambulance.

A division spokesperson says the AH-64 Apache helicopter was one of four that were taking part in the training.

The spokesperson said the crash will be investigated by a team from the Army Combat Readiness Center at Fort Rucker, Ala.

The Air Force has begun replacing Eielson Air Force Base’s aging fleet of F-16’s with upgraded models of the fighter jet. The first two of the newer jets arrived last week.

The two newer F-16 Fighting Falcons are both about 35 years old, a couple of years younger than the jets they’ll replace. More importantly, the incoming F-16s have avionics that were updated five years ago, nearly a decade after than the old jets got their last upgrade.

“So, it’s still the same airframe and engine,” says Lt. Col. Albert Roper, the commander of Eielson’s 18^th Aggressor Squadron. “However, with the increase in systems capabilities upgrade, some of the software, the processors, all that has been replaced.”

Roper says the upgraded jets will enable his unit to better train U.S. and allied pilots to fight adversaries’ advanced aircraft, including so-called fifth-generation fighters, comparable to Eielson’s F-35s and the F-22s based at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson.

“Our daily training here is interaction with local fifth-gen aircraft here in the state of Alaska, both F-22s from down there at JBER and then with the F-35s here at Eielson Air Force Base, in order to keep them operationally proficient and combat-ready,” he said in an interview Thursday.

Roper’s unit is called the Aggressor Squadron because its pilots often play the role of adversaries during training exercises held every year out of Eielson and JBER. Those include Red Flag and Northern Edge, both of which are conducted in the skies above the 65-thousand-square-mile Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, a series of ranges spread around the state.

“The mission of the Aggressors is to know the threat,” he said. “We teach that threat to our combat aircrews and their partner nations. And then we replicate that threat in the aircraft.”

Roper says that training will continue over the next several months, with both the new and old F-16s. He says during that time, two or three of the newer jets will arrive every few weeks, and two or three of the older ones will then fly their final missions to the Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in southern Arizona — the so-called Boneyard, where aircraft are stored before being sold, repurposed or recycled.

“By August or September of this year,” he said, “hopefully the transition’s been completed and we’ve got our newer jets here and the other ones are down in the Boneyard mothballed-away.”

Roper says all 19 of the squadron’s F-16s will be replaced with the newer jets.

At the end of June, 19-year-old Mackenzie Wilson was at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. She talked with her mom, Jessica Swan, on the phone.

“The last thing we had heard, she said safety on base was ‘super-sketch,’” Swan said.

Wilson had recently finished her freshman year of college at Oregon State University, where she studied biochemistry and molecular biology. She was also in Air Force ROTC, a program that prepares college students to become military officers. Before coming home to Eagle River for the summer, the military flew her to the base for a one-week, professional development program.

Swan figured her daughter would be home soon and could explain what was sketchy in person.

“And then she was dead,” she said.

Wilson remembers the exact moment she learned her daughter had died: An Air Force officer knocked on her door, sat her down and delivered an “I regret to inform you” letter. They told her details about what happened weren’t available yet, but would come.

A few days later, the Air Force base announced that Wilson died in a Humvee accident during a training event.

Now, more than six months have passed, and Swan said she still has so many questions about what happened, and who allowed it. She’s sad, she’s frustrated, and she’s angry. She said she’s sharing her daughter’s story because she thinks the military’s explanation is long overdue and fears the death will be explained away as just another tragic training accident.

Idaho is prosecuting the driver, a University of Minnesota student, for manslaughter. But Swan still wants to know who decided it was OK to put a teenager behind the wheel of a 28-year-old tactical vehicle. And why does her daughter’s travel paperwork say this trip was specifically not for a training event?

She said she thought her daughter would basically be job shadowing that week in Idaho, not doing anything dangerous.

“We’re just, we’re just completely shattered,” Swan said. “So far, there’s been no accountability. We’re just kind of muddling through trying to — trying to survive.”

Swan said she’s been trying to pry information out of authorities. She’s been on a leave of absence from her job as a teacher. She keeps a notebook of Air Force officials and authorities in Idaho she’s talked to, dates and phone numbers, and what they’ve said.

“It’s always me reaching out to them, following up with them,” she said. “And because it’s dealing with the military, Department of Defense, it’s now six and a half months and I’m still trying to get information and that’s excruciating.”

Air Force officials provided a statement by email, but declined to be interviewed for this story.

“The Air Force has a profound obligation to discover the facts of any accident in order to determine what can be done differently going forward to prevent similar outcomes in similar conditions and circumstances,” wrote Marilyn Holliday with public affairs for the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command. “The Air Force takes the safety and well-being of every Airman very seriously, and we will constantly evaluate our training procedures to provide the safest and most effective training environment possible.”

They did not answer a list of questions about the timeline for their investigation, how cadets were chosen for the event, what the cadets were actually doing that week, or non-combat Humvee accidents generally. The Air Force hasn’t even explained why Wilson was in the Humvee.

But Swan said U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office has been helping her get information, including an Idaho State Police collision report that sheds some light. It says Wilson was riding shotgun, one of three people in the Humvee on June 24. They were all 19 years old.

It’s the police report that identifies the driver, Cole Harcey. Swan thinks he was another ROTC cadet, but the Air Force wouldn’t confirm that. His attorney declined to comment.

The report says the crash happened on a service road in a base bombing range, on a clear, dry morning. The gravel road was straight and level with a posted speed limit of 15 mph. The police report says the Humvee was just going too fast. It went out of control, off the road and rolled over. Wilson was partially ejected and died pinned under the Humvee.

The driver was the only person wearing a seatbelt. He and the other passenger both went to the hospital, and were both released within two days of the crash.

Back in her Eagle River living room, Swan has a table and shelves adorned with artifacts of a life cut short. In a blown up portrait from the funeral, Wilson smiles to the whole room in her blue, Air Force dress uniform.

There’s a distinctive knife she carried, a painting of a butterfly made with her second grade handprints. There are race bibs and medals from half-marathons, a Christmas list from when Wilson was about 6 years old asking for Blendy Pens and dinosaur toys.

Swan said her daughter got interested in junior ROTC in high school because she liked community service. The petite athlete and aspiring scientist often donated blood – and insisted her mom donate, too. She was proud of being on the drill team and parading as part of the color guard. They taught her first aid and leadership skills.

“It never crossed my mind that her life would be in danger in ROTC,” Swan said.

If she stuck with it, Swan figured she’d be using her brain in the Air Force behind the scenes, not on a frontline.

 

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Swan said that June trip was her daughter’s first time on a military base.

“And they killed her for no reason,” she said. “She wasn’t in a war. She wasn’t doing dangerous training. She was job shadowing.”

She doesn’t want any other parent to go through this.

Air Force rules say that Humvees are not supposed to be driven casually – only with training, certification and licensing, or with a high-level waiver.

Wilson wasn’t even in the military yet. But Swan said she has learned that Humvee rollover accidents are particularly common in the armed forces, and that congressional watchdogs have documented thousands of accidents involving tactical vehicles outside of combat that have killed and maimed hundreds of young servicemembers.

Swan said she’s been patient, but now thinks the military’s explanation is overdue. She wants more people to be held responsible than just the teenager behind the Humvee’s wheel.

“I mean, my goal is accountability,” Swan said. “Mackenzie’s death was completely preventable. And also awareness, awareness that teenagers are being killed on American soil. … What’s being stated to be training accidents.”

She said someone higher up made a decision that cost her daughter her life.