Search teams hunt for wreckage after shooting down flying object: Trudeau

OTTAWA — Canadian recovery teams are searching the Yukon wilderness for the remnants of an object shot down by American military planes Saturday afternoon and which the United States is now identifying as a small surveillance balloon.

“Recovery teams” are searching for the downed object, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday, so they can analyze it.

“There’s still much to know about it,” he said. “That’s why the analysis of this object is going to be very important.”

The prime minister spoke to reporters briefly at the airport before boarding a plane bound for Yukon on a trip that was planned before Saturday’s incident but will now include meetings with local government and Indigenous leaders about what happened.

Defence Minister Anita Anand said Saturday the object was “potentially similar” to the Chinese spy balloon destroyed off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4.