Runaway Military Blimp Was Shot Down By State Police: AP

By Elizabeth Janney and Kara Seymour:

A runaway military blimp that broke free in Maryland and later landed in Pennsylvania was shot down, a Pentagon spokesperson told The Hill.

The blimp landed around 3:45 p.m. Wednesday in Columbia County nearly four hours after becoming untethered at Aberdeen Proving Ground. No injuries were reported.

The blimp traveled almost 200 miles north at 30 miles per hour and got as high as 16,000 before landing in Muncy, according to NORAD.

Upon landing, the runaway blimp broke into two main pieces, one of which was in a difficult-to-access ravine, Army Captain Matthew Villa said at a press conference Thursday.

Since the part of the airship in the ravine was still filled with helium, Pennsylvania State Police fired 100 shots at the blimp to deflate it, according to the Associated Press.

The blimp’s tail reportedly broke off before it landed, approximately 0.25 mile from the ravine.

Meanwhile, another helium-filled surveillance blimp in Baltimore County has reportedly been taken down while military officials recover its mate.

There is no chance the blimp, technically called an aerostat, will return to Aberdeen Thursday, and Villa said it may not be back in Maryland until next week.

RELATED

• Military Blimp Grounded in Pennsylvania: Officials
• Snapshots of Maryland Blimp’s Trip to Pennsylvania
• Traveling Blimp Unleashes Twitter Frenzy
• Multi-Million-Dollar Blimp Program Under Fire

Aberdeen’s runaway blimp was one of two patrolling the skies north of Baltimore.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) deployed two aerostats as part of a three-year test to watch for threats from New York to North Carolina to Ohio.

The blimp in the Edgewood area of Aberdeen Proving Ground was to feed information to NORAD that it received from its mate, a surveillance aerostat in Baltimore County. Defense officials said the system would protect the region from objects like missiles, ground targets, swarming boats and unmanned aircraft.

Roles were reversed Wednesday when the Edgewood-based aerostat broke free from its tether and two F-16 fighter jets kept an eye on it as it drifted north.

With the tether trailing from its body, the runaway blimp knocked out power to thousands and put citizens on alert in Maryland and Pennsylvania, where authorities warned people to stay away from the airship.

It landed in a “rugged, wooded area in northeast Pennsylvania,” NORAD reported.

Investigators are working to determine what caused the aerostat to break free from its tether.

Officials brought the blimp at Graces Quarters in Baltimore County to the ground as a precaution during the investigation, according to WJZ.

According to Defense News, an aerostat broke free in 2010 and crashed into another aerostat in North Carolina, causing $168 million in damage. That incident was attributed to bad weather.

Pictured, aerostat at Graces Quarters in Baltimore County. Photo Credit: C. Todd Lopez/U.S. Army