A sonic boom erupted in Washington on Sunday as two fighter jets attempted to intercept an unresponsive plane before it crashed in the US state of Virginia, AFP officials said.
• Also read: “Walking on corpses”: “Too much pain” after the train nightmare
• Also read: Sandstorm in Egypt: A man is crushed by a billboard
Residents of the United States capital and its suburbs have reported hearing a thunderous noise that rattled windows and walls for miles and sparked many questions on social media.
Two F-16 fighter jets were mobilized because a Cessna 560 Citation V private jet failed to respond over Washington and northern Virginia, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a press release.
The two fighter jets took off from Andrews Base in Maryland, a Pentagon official told AFP, to join the plane, which then crashed in a mountainous area in the southwest of the country in Virginia.
President Joe Biden, who was in the area Sunday, was briefed on the incident, a White House official told reporters, without specifying whether precautionary measures had been taken.
According to American Civil Aviation (FAA), the civilian aircraft took off from Elizabethton, Tennessee (east) to reach Long Island, New York state (northeast).
NORAD fighter jets “were allowed to fly at supersonic speeds and a sonic boom was heard by residents of the area,” the command said in a statement. The plane also threw decoys to get the pilot’s attention.
NORAD said it attempted to make contact with the pilot before the plane crashed and intercepted him around 3:20 p.m. local time.
The plane eventually crashed around 3:30 p.m. local time near Montebello, Virginia, about 270 miles southwest of Washington, the FAA reported.
The military did not shoot down the plane, several US media reported.
No information has yet been released about the pilot or any passengers on the plane.
About 50 miles east of the federal capital, the City of Annapolis Emergency Management Office reassured residents on Twitter that the crash was “caused by an authorized Department of Defense.” This flight caused a sonic boom.
Sonic booms occur when a device breaks the sound barrier. They can take the populace by surprise and cause damage, particularly by smashing windows.