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The loud noise heard over much of the Washington, D.C. area on Sunday afternoon was caused by a sonic boom from a military aircraft scrambled to respond to an incursion into the restricted airspace by a civilian aircraft, military and U.S. officials said. Confirmed on Sunday.
Two fighter jets were deployed from Joint Base Andrews to intercept the aircraft after the Cessna jet entered the restricted airspace, officials confirmed Sunday. The owner of the commercial plane said in a telephone interview that there were four people on board, including his daughter and granddaughter.
A spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police said in a statement Monday that emergency responders were able to reach the wreckage on foot about four hours after receiving reports of the plane crash. No survivors were found.
The crew of the plane will be identified as soon as the information becomes available, police said.
Two F-16 fighter jets deployed after a Cessna 560 Citation V flew over Washington and northern Virginia on Sunday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which oversees aerospace administration in the United States and Canada, said in a statement. announced that it was
NORAD said the fighter planes were “authorized to fly at supersonic speeds,” in which case they could be heard in the area and, according to some reports, even reach outskirts of Virginia and Maryland. said it would have caused a roar. The NORAD aircraft also used flares that could be visible from the ground “to attract the pilot’s attention,” officials said.
After the Cessna jet entered a restricted area containing an important national landmark, the Federal Aviation Administration alerted the pilots, but the plane didn’t respond, so the military ordered a fighter jet to intercept it, military officials said. .
Officials have since determined that the Cessna did not pose a threat and will investigate why the pilot did not comply with the FAA, officials said. The Cessna plane was not shot down. A White House official said President Biden was briefed on the incident.
According to NORAD, the Cessna plane crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia, but earlier FAA statements said the Cessna plane crashed near Montebello at about 3:30 p.m. It crashed in the mountains of the region.”
The aircraft was a private business jet owned by Florida-based Encore Motors of Melbourne. John Rumpel, 75, who runs the company, was contacted by phone and said his daughter, two-year-old granddaughter, nanny and the pilot were on board. He said he was returning to East Hampton, New York, after visiting his home in North Carolina for four days.
Rumpel, who is also a pilot, said he had little information about the circumstances of the crash but hoped no one was injured. If the plane lost pressurization, “everybody would have fallen asleep and would never have woken up again,” he said, his voice breaking.
“I don’t think they have found any wreckage yet,” Rumpel said. “We were going down at 20,000 feet a minute and if we crashed at that speed no one would survive.”
The FAA said the plane took off from Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and was en route to Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, New York, adding that the incident is under investigation. The Cessna Citation bound for Long Island Airport left Tennessee at 1:13 p.m., according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
The Annapolis Emergency Management Agency also said on twitter The sonic boom was said to be from a flight authorized by the Department of Defense.
Immediately after the incident, people took to social media to report hearing loud noises not only in Washington but also in Maryland and northern Virginia. Many said the noise sounded like an explosion, and some said the impact was so strong it shook their homes. A sonic boom is caused by an object moving faster than sound, or about 750 miles per hour on the surface of the ocean.
The noise from the sonic boom spooked people across Washington, with many speculating on social media as to what was causing it.
Rafael Olivieri, 62, said he heard a “loud, very short sound” that shook his house while he was at his home in Annandale, Virginia. Olivieri fled outside, but neighbors were also trying to find out what had happened. “I looked up at the sky first,” he said. “I was really worried.”
More than 30 miles northeast of Edgewater, Maryland, Joseph Krygiel, 47, also felt the boom. He was in the basement of his home shortly after 3:00 p.m. when his whole house shook. “It felt like something big,” Kligiel said.
Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed to the report.
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