The sole occupant, huh? So he hijacked it from himself?

Edit: another source says he threatened a flight instructor, which I imagine was on the ground before he took off with the plane.

I assume it could also mean hijacked from its planned course?

I’d still rather have Canadian fighter jets deal with stuff in Canada. I know two planes doesn’t make an invasion, but I don’t want the USA getting too comfortable with flying in when they feel like it.

Seriously. Can our own jets not handle a Cessna?

Isn’t NORAD a joint defense organization between the US and Canada?

The article says jets from the US and Canada both responded and the US jets from NORAD were stood down once they new the plane had landed.

It’s a bit more complicated than that I think. It was a NORAD response and that has a fair amount of integration between US and Canada. The base the American jets flew from has Canadian air force pilots stationed there—and is a western norad air defense post, so likely they are closest responding, and the Canadian hornets were coming from farther out (possibly Alberta?). But operationally the request came from a NORAD division in Canada, so it wasn’t like the US Air Force deciding to unilaterally violate Canadas sovereignty over a rogue Cessna. More like joint operation under mutual defense treaty kind of stuff like you’d get with NATO countries.

I don’t fully understand exactly how it all works but back in the pandemic a us F-22 shot down a spy ballon in Canada also I think, run via NORAD also. Canada maintains a lot of the northern radar and early warning stuff that NORAD uses as well.

Anyhow I wouldn’t blame Canadians for not being thrilled about American military assets zipping around overhead right now, just saying it’s not specifically remarkable as the article headline seems to suggest.

Yes. Im angsty about the Americans but joint interceptions have been happening since WW2 between us.

This is nothing out of the usual but Trumps posture certainly should have us rethinking this. We already know this line of thought of relying on America has met its rhetorical end of the road.

Some CBC readers have raised concerns that Canada wouldn’t have been able to take action against it had the balloon been a threat.

Not an issue, according to Bercuson. He says one of the main points of NORAD is that Canadian and U.S. military aircraft need not seek permission every time they need to fly over each other’s territory.

“So once the decision was made that this thing would be shot down,” he said, “if we didn’t have the capability of doing it, the Americans would do it.”

• https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/spy-balloon-canada-norad-questions-1.6742695

If you take control of it while it’s on the ground it’s just called a jacking

Well what the hell is a lojack then.

I think the bigger issue is why was Norad notified for a Canadian civilian issue. Air command could easily have handled things with bumping it up to Norad.

The spy weather balloons are a different issue.

That’s a rabbit with antlers

Can you not understand what NORAD is?

Yeah that’s a fair point—I feel like you could manage this incident with a police helicopter or something. Maybe NORAD was just bored and itching for an excuse to scramble…