Joe Biden praised the Top Gun fighter jet pilot who shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina today after he vowed to 'take care of it.'

An F-22 Raptor out of Langley Air Force base took the balloon down with a single AIM-9X sidewinder missile at 2.38pm, separating its surveillance payload and sending it plummeting towards the ocean off Myrtle Beach.

Footage showed the jet screaming towards the spy aircraft before firing the missile as stunned locals watched from the coast.

An operation was underway to recover the wreckage and retrieve any valuable intelligence before it sinks into the ocean.

Biden told reporters, 'I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible without doing damage to anyone on the ground. They decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water.'

'They successfully took it down it down and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,' the President said he stepped off Air Force One en route to Camp David at Hagerstown Regional Airport, Maryland.

The Pentagon confirmed: 'The balloon, which was being used by the People's Republic of China in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above US territorial waters.'


"They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it," Biden said.