WASHINGTON: The US scrambled F-16 fighter jets in a supersonic chase of a light aircraft with an unresponsive pilot that violated airspace around Washington DC and later crashed into the mountains of Virginia, said the officials.
No survivors were found at the crash site, police in Virginia state said. The jet fighters created a sonic boom over the country’s capital as they pursued the errant Cessna Citation, officials said, causing alarm among people in the Washington area, Arab News reported.
Four people were onboard the Cessna, a source familiar with the matter said. A Cessna Citation can carry 7-12 passengers. After several hours, the first responders reached the crash site but found no one alive, a statement issued by the Virginia State Police said.
The Cessna was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne, Florida, according to the flight-tracking website Flight Aware. Encore owner John Rumpel told the Washington Post his daughter, a grandchild and her nanny were on board. “We know nothing about the crash,” the Post quoted Rumpel as saying. “We are talking to the FAA now,” he added before ending the call.
The US military attempted to contact the pilot, who was unresponsive, until the Cessna crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement. The Cessna appeared to be flying on autopilot, another source familiar with the matter said. “The NORAD aircraft were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds and a sonic boom may have been heard by residents of the region,” the statement said, and added NORAD aircraft also used flares to the pilot’s attention. A US official said the fighters did not cause the crash.
The Cessna took off from Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and was bound for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York, about 80 km east of Manhattan, the FAA statement said. It further said that it and the National Transportation Safety Board would investigate.
According to Flight Aware, the plane appeared to reach the New York area, then made nearly a 180-degree turn.
Incidents involving unresponsive pilots are not unprecedented. Golfer Payne Stewart died in 1999 along with four others after the aircraft he was in flew thousands of miles with the pilot and passengers unresponsive. The plane eventually hit the ground in South Dakota with no survivors.
In the case of Stewart’s flight, the plane lost cabin pressure, causing the occupants to lose consciousness because of oxygen deprivation.
Similarly, a small United States private plane with an unresponsive pilot crashed off the east coast of Jamaica in 2014 after veering far off course and triggering a security alert including a fighter jet escort.
On Sunday, the sonic boom upset many people in the Washington area who took to Twitter to report hearing a loud noise that shook the ground and walls. Several residents said they heard the noise as far away as northern Virginia and Maryland.
