WASHINGTON~ Before the business plane crashed in Virginia on Sunday afternoon, the military scrambled a fighter jet in response to a wayward and unresponsive aircraft that passed over the capital. The fighter jet’s powerful sonic boom could be heard all throughout the capital. After several hours, police reported that no survivors had been located at the scene of the jet crash in a remote area of the Shenandoah Valley.
The Cessna Citation reportedly took off from Elizabethtown, Tennessee, on Sunday and was en route to MacArthur Airport on Long Island, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Unexpectedly, the aircraft made a U-turn above Long Island, New York, and then descended directly toward Washington, D.C., before colliding with the mountains near Montebello, Virginia, at roughly 3:30 p.m. The reason for the plane’s inability to respond, the cause of the disaster, and the number of passengers were not immediately known. Although it was theoretically above some of the most strictly regulated airspace in the country, the aircraft went right over the capital of the country.
The military fighter was scrambled to respond to the small plane, which was not responding to radio messages and later crashed, a U.S. official confirmed to The Associated Press. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly disclose specifics of the military operation. Prior to crashing in the St. Mary’s Wilderness, it was evident from flight tracking sites that the jet had a rapid spiraling descent, dropping at one point at a rate of more than 30,000 feet per minute.
A sonic boom was audible in sections of Virginia, Maryland, and Washington after the North American Aerospace Defense Command later claimed that the F-16 was permitted to fly at supersonic speeds. According to the Virginia State Police, officers were made aware of the impending collision just before 4 o’clock, and rescuers arrived at the incident site on foot about four hours later. According to police, there were no survivors.
News on SNBC13.com
