Join Amazon Prime for exclusive deals, fast shipping, and endless entertainment! Sign up now!
A pilot who apparently collapsed at the controls was the reason D.C. residents were startled by sonic booms. The unresponsive private plane triggered Joint Base Andrews to scramble fighter jets to intercept a potential threat to national security. It doesn’t appear to be an intentional terror attack, at least not yet. Either way, it does underscore the vulnerability presented by airborne medical emergencies.
Pilot reported unresponsive
The pilot of a Cessna didn’t answer his radio so they sent a pair of F-16’s to check him out. As explained by North American Aerospace Defense Command officials, fighter jets scrambled from Joint Base Andrews are what caused “a sonic boom that reverberated across the area.”
The private plane later crashed in Southwest Virginia, killing everyone aboard instantly.
Nobody is really sure exactly what did happen and it’s “unclear why the Cessna did not respond or why it crashed later.” The pilot took off from Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Elizabethton, Tennessee, en-route to New York. More on that momentarily.
BREAKING: A small Cessna plane flew over a no fly zone in Washington, D.C. unresponsive this afternoon.
– F16's were then scrambled to intercept the unresponsive aircraft.
– The Annapolis Office of Emergency Management confirmed that a sonic boom was caused by the F16s.
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) June 4, 2023
According to public records, the plane was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne, a Florida-based company. Washington Post reached out to Encore and spoke with owner John Rumpel.
Mr. Rumpel confirmed that the plane was owned by them and without naming the pilot told them what he knew, so far. “To the best of my knowledge, his entire family was on board, including his daughter, a grandchild and her nanny.”
Other than that, “we know nothing about the crash. We are talking to the FAA now.” The Federal Aviation Administration referred questions to the NTSB, who will be leading the investigation into the crash. Apparently, the impact was kinetic enough to leave a crater.
Plane wasn’t shot down
Nobody is talking about the cause of the plane’s eventual crash but the most obvious explanation is that after the pilot died at the wheel, or otherwise became totally incapacitated, one of the passengers tried to take control from the autopilot. There wasn’t much other choice under those conditions. Either that, or it simply ran out of gas.
Military sources clarified that “a total of six military jets were launched” from three separate locations. Only two of the F-16’s “inspected” the Cessna and noted the pilot appeared slumped over the controls.
That would explain why nobody on the plane was talking to air traffic control. A pilot headed over the nation’s capitol without communicating with the tower is enough to call in NORAD.
🚨 JUST IN: A DC-area resident captured the “explosion” sound on his home camera.
We now know the “explosion” was a sonic boom caused by fighter jets scrambled to intercept an unresponsive Cessna Citation jet overflying DC, which later crashed.
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 4, 2023
After the jets made contact, and shot off a few flares to get the pilot’s attention, without success, the plane “crashed near the George Washington National Forest.”
One mystery remains. The plane should have had enough gas to make it to Long Island, New York, the destination listed by the pilot on his flight plan.
“Data from flight tracking service Flightradar24 shows a plane matching the Citation’s description and flight path reaching Long Island before turning around. The plane flew directly over Washington before the data ends near Staunton, Va.” First responders “reached the crash site shortly before 8 p.m.,” State police note. “No survivors were found.“
