[ad_1]
Federal authorities on Monday were investigating what caused a private aircraft to fly into restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., on Sunday, triggering a response by military jets that caused a sonic boom to be heard across much of the region before the small plane crashed in Virginia, killing all four people onboard.
The private business jet went down near Montebello, Va., the National Transportation Safety Board said. A spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police said in a statement on Monday that emergency responders were able to reach the wreckage on foot about four hours after receiving a report of a plane crash.
John Rumpel, who runs Encore Motors of Melbourne, a Florida-based company that owns the aircraft, said in a telephone interview on Monday that his daughter, Adina Azarian, his 2-year old granddaughter, her nanny and the pilot were on the plane and did not survive.
The plane, a Cessna 560 Citation V, crashed “almost straight down and at a high speed,” he said, adding that the impact caused a crater, and the wreckage was spread over 150 yards. Mr. Rumpel had said on Sunday that they were returning home to East Hampton, N.Y., after a four-day visit to his home in North Carolina.
Two fighter jets were sent from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after the Cessna entered the restricted airspace, prompting the emergency response to intercept the flight, military and U.S. officials confirmed on Sunday.
After the Cessna veered into the restricted area, which includes important national landmarks, the Federal Aviation Administration called the pilot but received no response from that plane, and the military ordered the jets to intercept, a military official said.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which oversees aerospace control over the United States and Canada, said in a statement that two F-16 jets were deployed on Sunday after the Cessna flew over Washington and Northern Virginia.
NORAD said that the fighter jets “were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds,” which would have produced the boom that was heard in the region, including in the suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. The jets also used flares that may have been visible from the ground, the agency said, “in an attempt to draw attention from the pilot.”
Officials later determined that the Cessna did not pose a threat, and the investigation will look into why the pilot did not respond to the F.A.A. The Cessna was not shot down, the officials said. A White House official said President Biden was briefed on the incident.
The Cessna crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia, NORAD said, though an earlier statement from the F.A.A. said it “crashed into mountainous terrain in a sparsely populated area of southwest Virginia,” near Montebello, around 3:30 p.m. local time.
Mr. Rumpel, who is also a pilot, said on Sunday that he had little information about the circumstances of the crash, but hoped his daughter, granddaughter and the others on board had not suffered. His voice breaking, he said that if the plane lost pressurization, “they all just would have gone to sleep and never woke up.”
“It descended at 20,000 feet a minute, and nobody could survive a crash from that speed,” Mr. Rumpel said.
The aircraft had taken off from Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Elizabethton, Tenn., and was bound for Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., the F.A.A. said. The Cessna left Tennessee at 1:13 p.m. local time, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.
The Annapolis Office of Emergency Management had also said on Twitter that the sonic boom resulted from an authorized Defense Department flight.
People reported on social media that they had heard a loud boom in across the Washington area. Many said the noise sounded like an explosion, and some said the boom was so strong that it shook their homes. A sonic boom is caused by an object moving faster than sound, or about 750 miles per hour at sea level.
Rafael Olivieri, 62, said he was at home in Annandale, Va., when he heard a “loud, very short sound” that shook his house. Mr. Olivieri ran outside, where his neighbors were also trying to figure out what had happened. “My first thing was looking to the sky,” he said. “I was really worried.”
More than 30 miles northeast, in Edgewater, Md., Joseph Krygiel, 47, also felt the boom. He said he was in his basement just after 3 p.m. when the whole house shook. “It felt like something major,” Mr. Krygiel said.
Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed reporting.
[ad_2]
Source link
