SEATTLE - The North American Aerospace Defense Command says it is carrying out a "live-fly air defense exercise" Wednesday off the coast of Washington state and British Columbia, just days after it intercepted Russian aircraft near Alaska and multiple airborne objects were shot down.The four Russian planes were detected and intercepted over the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone on Monday in what NORAD called a "routine" incident.
As part of today’s exercise, a variety of American and Canadian planes, "including fighter aircraft, will operate at high altitude," it said.
But NORAD added that the training is "in no way related to recent NORAD and U.S. Northern Command operations associated with airborne objects over North America during the last two weeks.""To test responses, systems and equipment, NORAD routinely conducts air defense exercises using a variety of scenarios, including airspace restriction violations, hijackings and responding to unknown aircraft," it also said.RELATED: White House says objects shot from sky were not sent by aliensThe military is making some headway on recovering parts of the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down earlier this month.A U.S.
defense official told Fox News on Wednesday that the exercise has been planned for months.RELATED: US working to identify objects shot down from sky as China concerns escalateThe U.S.