An unresponsive plane flying over Washington, DC, on Sunday prompted military fighter jets intercept the plane at hypersonic levels, causing a loud sonic boom heard around D.C. and Virginia, officials said. The plane later crashed in Virginia and no survivors were found.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) deployed F-16 fighter jets to respond to the unresponsive Cessna 560 Citation V aircraft over Washington, DC and Virginia, NORAD said in a statement. The fight was conducted by the 113th Fighter Wing of the National Guard in DC, a US official told CBS News.
“The NORAD aircraft were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds and residents of the region may have heard a sonic boom,” NORAD said, adding that flares, which may have been visible to the public, were also used to try to get the pilot’s attention.
Residents who caught the sound of fighter jets quickly took to social media, publication videos of the fort boom punctuating a seemingly calm afternoon.
Was it a sonic boom or an explosion? I thought the house came here in Edgewater MD. In this video you can see that my attic access panel even popped, then you can hear the house shaking for a few seconds. #explosion #sonicboom #boomhttps://t.co/A7lwXiu9ht
— BlitzKryg (@JudginNGrudgin) June 4, 2023
The plane had been following “an odd flight path,” the US official said.
The Cessna left Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Elizabethton, Tenn., and went to Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York. the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Flight trackers showed the plane heading north to Long Island from Tennessee before turning around and flying straight to DC. Trackers showed the plane descending rapidly before it crashed, falling at one point at more than 30,000 feet per minute, The Associated Press. reported
The Cessna was intercepted by fighter jets at approximately 3:20 pm ET. The pilot became unresponsive during NORAD’s attempts to establish contact and the plane crashed near the George Washington Forest in Virginia, the statement said.
The FAA confirmed that the plane crashed into mountainous terrain near Montebello, Virginia. A US official told CBS News that the Cessna was not shot down by the F-16s.
Capitol Police said in one statement said it had monitored the plane and temporarily placed the Capitol complex “on high alert until the plane left the area.”
Virginia State Police were notified of the crash and immediately deployed to locate the wreckage, which they reached on foot shortly before 8 p.m., police said.
Hilly terrain and fog had hampered search efforts, police said.
It was not immediately known how many people were on board the plane.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that they are jointly investigating the crash.
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