According to a CNN report, Pennsylvania State Police confirmed that the blimp associated with North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD’s) surveillance of the East Coast is now on the ground and authorities have it secured after it broke loose from its tether at an Army facility in Maryland around noon Eastern.
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The blimp, formally known as an aerostat, was part of a three-year research project for the JLENS program, which stands for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System.
But as it landed, someone on the ground in Bloomsburg was able to record its descent. It covered about 150 miles over about 3 hours.
The Raytheon-made JLENS system consists of both a fire-control aerostat and a surveillance aerostat.
The program is comprised of two blimps, each 242 feet long. State police troopers peppered the blimp with about 100 shots. One carries wide-area surveillance radar that can look in a 360-degree circle; the other carries fire control radar, which is created to provide more specific targeting information.
But putting the jokes aside about a giant escaped blimp being trailed by armed F-16 fighter jets, the incident – said not to be weather-related – is an embarrassing one. In this case, however, it seems the blimps themselves have become a threat, at least when it comes to people living in Pennsylvania who just have their electricity knocked offline.
The research, development and initial production of the system has cost $2.7 billion. But a few have said that deploying JLENS overseas was too much of an uphill battle with potential host countries over perceptions of large spy blimps looming in the sky.
Michael Negard, spokesman for the Army Combat Readiness Center, said a two-person accident-investigation team is heading to the site. The two flew up to 10,000 feet in the air and were visible for miles around, becoming a fixture in the Baltimore-area skyline.
Investigators are working to determine what caused the aerostat to break free from its tether. It was not immediately clear whether the blimp was damaged extensively.
“People are warned to keep a safe distance from the airship and tether as contact with them may present significant danger”, a statement from the Aberdeen Proving Ground said.
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“As it got closer to us, all of a sudden our lights started to flicker and we lost power”, he said.
