It is reported that two fighter jets are tracking the high-tech blimp over Pennsylvania.
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As The Intercept reported back in December, the blimps were birthed from an 18-year-long, $2.8 billion Army project.
Bloomsburg University cancelled classes for the day because of the outage.
In a tweet, Fox 29’s Chris O’Connell said that sources with the Department of Defense hinted they may have to take the blimp down themselves.
(Updated) A military blimp carrying sensitive monitoring equipment that had been tethered safely above the ground at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Edgewood, Maryland, broke free from its anchored position dragging its unsafe cable tether behind it, according to an October 28 release from APG.
Residents watched it float silently over the sparsely populated area, its dangling tether snapping power lines.
“People are warned to keep a safe distance from the airship and tether as contract with them may present significant danger”, The Aberdeen Proving Ground said in a statement.
The loose blimp, which roughly extends the length of a football field, is part of what’s known as a JLENS, or Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor.
Two F-16 jets dispatched by the military to follow the blimp confirmed that it was near Reading by 12:57 p.m. and flew over Port Clinton.
“As it got closer to us, all of a sudden our lights started to flicker and we lost power”, he said.
Pennsylvania state police say a military blimp that broke loose in Maryland and drifted over Pennsylvania is on the ground and secure.
According to Raytheon, the defense contractor that built JLENS, the aerostats carry powerful radars to detect missiles and manned and unmanned aircraft from up to 340 miles away.
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Raytheon, which produces the aircraft, described the likelihood that the tether would break as “very small”. Each radar system employs a 243 feet long tethered aerostat, a mobile mooring station, radar and communications payloads, a processing station and associated ground support equipment.
