FAA briefly closes airspace over part of Montana to investigate radar ‘anomaly’

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily shut down airspace over part of Montana as the Defense Department sent a fighter to investigate an “anomaly” that was spotted on radar, officials said. 

The North American Aerospace Defense Command [NORAD] said in a statement Saturday that the central Montana airspace was closed after it “detected a radar anomaly” but a jet that was sent up found nothing. 

“Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits. NORAD will continue to monitor the situation,” the defense command said.

NORAD’s statement, however, conflicted with an earlier tweet by Montana Rep. Matt Rosedale, who wrote that an “object” that could “interfere with commercial aircraft” had been spotted.

He said he was told by military officials that “the DOD will resume efforts to observe and ground the object in the morning.” He gave no details as to what it was.

Rosendale and his reps couldn’t not immediately be reached for comment about the discrepancy.

The FAA issued a notice around 5:30 p.m. Saturday banning flights in an area about 50 by 50 nautical miles around Havre, Montana, close to the Canadian border. 

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It classified the area as “national defense airspace,” before the FAA reopened the airspace a short time later.

The FAA could not confirm whether it was in response to another balloon or another foreign object violating US airspace.

“I am in direct contact with NORCOM and monitoring the latest issue over Havre and the northern border,” Rosendale tweeted. “Airspace is closed due to an object that could interfere with commercial air traffic — the DOD will resume efforts to observe and ground the object in the morning.”

A similar action was issued last week after a Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted over Montana as it crossed the entire North American continent before it was shot down in the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast on Feb. 4.

The alert comes as the US shot down a separate “unidentified object” over Canada Saturday, which violated the nation’s airspace earlier in the day.